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CHARLES  JAMES   FOX 


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&!/!yy  'WiUker-  &k<^c 


h/uir/e.i     nni(\)  ^  7c^. 


CHARLES    JAMES    FOX 

A    COMMENTARY 
ON   HIS   LIFE   AND    CHARACTER 

BY    WALTER     SAVAGE    LANDOR 

EDITED    BY 

STEPHEN    WHEELER 

EDITOR   OF    "LETTERS   AND    UNPUBLISHED   WRITINGS 

OF   LANDOR,"    AND    OF    "  LETTERS   OF   W.   S.    LANDOR, 

PRIVATE  AND   PUBLIC  " 


WITH  A  PORTRAIT 


New    York:    G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 
London  :    JOHN    MURRAY 

1907 


PBINTKD  BY 

HAZKIX,  WATSON  ANP  VINKY,  I,D., 

LONDOS  AND  ATLKSBDRY. 

KNQLAND 


CONTENTS 

9AQM 

INTRODUCTION  BY  THE  EDITOR  .        .        .        .  vii 

COMMENTARY  ON  MEMOIRS  OF  MR.  FOX    .         .  1 

DEDICATION  TO   PRESIDENT  MADISON        .         .  5 

ADVERTISEMENT 13 

LANDOR'S  PREFACE 16 

I.     A  GEORGIAN  STATESMAN 42 

II.     WAR  AND  POLICY 67 

III.  THE  KING  AND  HIS  MINISTERS       ....  69 

IV.  IRELAND  AND  THE  UNION 86 

V.     VISIT  TO  THE  CONTINENT 94 

VI.     GHENT  AND  ANTWERP Ill 

VII.     DUTCH  NETHERLANDS 116 

VIII.     COMPANIONSHIP  OF  BOOKS 127 

IX.     MR.  FOX  IN  PARIS 169 

X.     COURT  OF  BONAPARTE 176 

XI.  MINISTRY  OF  ALL  THE  TALENTS    .         .         .         .198 

XII.  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX    .                 .        .210 

XIII.  SOME  LETTERS  FROM  C.  J.  FOX      .  .        .226 

XIV.  POSTSCRIPT 236 

INDEX 247 

V 


INTRODUCTION 

About  the  middle  of  the  last  century  Walter 
Savage  Landor,  then  living  placidly  for  the  most 
part,  but  with  intervals  of  indignation,  at  Bath, 
was  provoked  by  the  remark  of  TJie  Quarterly 
Meview  that,  among  authors  of  any  sort  of  note, 
he  alone  clung  with  equal  pertinacity  to  his  ancient 
abuse  of  Bonaparte  as  a  blockhead  and  coward, 
of  Pitt  as  a  villain,  of  Fox  as  a  scoundrel,  of 
Canning  as  a  scamp.^  This  drew  from  the  un- 
subduable  old  Roman,  as  Carlyle  called  him,  a 
letter   addressed  to   The  Eocaminer^^  in  which  he 

'  Referring  to  the  abuse  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington^  to  which  some 
English  writers  had  degraded  themselves^  the  reviewer  had  said  :  "But 
the  truth  is,  and  we  are  bound  to  tell  it,  it  was  the  Liberal  press 
in  France  that  in  this  matter  gave  law  to  our  patriots.  .  .  .  When 
P'rench  people  could  no  longer  resist  the  evidence  of  all  great  gifts 
and  noble  qualities  with  which  that  record  was  filled,  when  they  owned 
that  it  would  not  do  to  persist  in  their  old  vein  of  disparagement  .  .  . 
when  this  was  the  result  in  France,  the  home  faction  saw  it  was  time 
to  consider  the  matter,  and  they  undoubtedly  showed  and  continue  to 
show  signs  of  repentance.  The  exceptions  are  few.  .  .  .  Among 
authors  of  books  of  any  note,  verse  or  prose,  we  recollect  of  none 
unless  Mr.  W.  Savage  Landor,  who,  however,  clings  with  equal  per- 
tinacity to  his  ancient  abuse  of  Bonaparte  as  a  blockhead  and  a  coward, 
of  Byron  as  a  rhymer  wholly  devoid  of  genius  or  wit,  of  Pitt  as  a 
villain,  of  Fox  as  a  scoundrel,  of  Canning  as  a  scamp,  and  so  on." — 
Quarterly  Review,  vol.  86,  p.  130  (Dec.  1849). 

*  Examiner,  January  15,  1850.  The  letter  is  reprinted  in 
Landor's  La»t  Fruit  of  an  Old  Tree,  p.  339. 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

appealed  to  every  one  who  had  read  his  writings, 
however  negligently  or  malignantly,  to  avow  the 
injustice  of  the  charge.  That  he  had  not  always 
been  content  to  use  the  most  deferential  forms 
when  speaking  of  those  eminent  persons  will  be 
seen  from  his  Commentary  on  John  Bernard 
Trotter's  Memoirs  of  the  Latter  Years  of  the  Right 
Honourable  Charles  James  Fox. 

Landor's  Commentary,  though  written  toward 
the  end  of  1811  and  printed  early  in  1812,  is  now 
published  for  the  first  time.  The  manuscript  must 
have  been  destroyed  ages  ago.  Of  the  printed 
copies  one  only  seems  to  have  survived.  This  is 
in  the  possession  of  the  Earl  of  Crewe,  who  kindly 
allowed  me  to  transcribe  it.  On  the  fly-leaf  is 
the  following  manuscript  note,  written  by  his  lord- 
ship's father,  Lord  Houghton,  then  Mr.  Monckton 
Milnes : 

"  I  beheve  this  volume  to  be  unique.  Mr.  Lan- 
dor  told  me  he  was  aware  of  the  existence  of 
no  other  copy.  The  whole  edition  was  wasted, 
with  the  exception  of  this  copy,  which  the  author 
gave  to  Mr.  Southey. 

"  RicHD.  M.  Milnes." 

Trotter's  Memoirs  of  Charles  James  Fox  appeared 
in  1811,  and  quickly  ran  through  three  editions. 
The  book  was  dedicated  to  the  Prince  Regent 
in  recognition,  amongst  other  things,  "of  that 
interesting  sensibility  which  endears  you  so  much 


A  LITERARY  SENSATION  ix 

to  those  who  are  acquainted  with  you  in  their 
private  circle — and  of  your  pubHc  virtues,  which 
are  drawing  upon  you  the  love,  admiration  and 
blessings  of  this  great  empire." 

Trotter's  work  made  a  considerable  stir  at  the 
time,  and  was  reviewed  by  Canning  and  Ellis  in 
the  twelfth  number  of  The  Quarterly  Review. 
Of  the  author  one  may  read  in  The  European 
Magazine  for  1806  that  in  the  August  of  that 
year  Mr.  Fox,  Secretary  of  State,  appointed 
Mr.  Trotter,  nephew  of  his  late  friend,  the  Bishop 
of  Down,  to  be  his  private  secretary ;  and  Trotter's 
narrative  shows  that  before  then  he  had  been 
on  intimate  terms  with  his  patron,  whom  he  visited 
at  St.  Anne's  Hill  and  accompanied  on  a  tour  to 
the  Low  Countries  and  France  in  1802. 

The  earliest  reference  to  Landor's  Commentary 
is  in  a  letter  Southey  wrote  to  him  on  February  10, 
1812.^  In  this  Southey  says  that  he  had  received 
from  Mr.  John  Murray  a  parcel  containing,  among 
other  things,  an  unfinished  Commentary  upon 
Trotter's  book.     Southey  proceeds  : 

*'  Aut  Landor^  aut  diabolus.  From  the  manner, 
from  the  force,  from  the  vehemence,  I  concluded 
it  must  be  yours,  even  before  I  fell  upon  the 
passage  respecting  Spain  ^  which  proves  it  was 
yours.     I  could  not  lie  down  this  night  with  an 

'  The  correspondence  between  Southey  and  Landor   is   given  in 
Forster's  Walter  Smmge  Landor:  a  Biography,  London,  1869. 
»  See  below,  p.  182. 

b 


X  INTRODUCTION 

easy  conscience  if  I  did  not  beseech  you  to  sus- 
pend the  pubUcation  till  you  have  cancelled  some 
passages  :  that  attack  upon  Fellowes^  might  bring 
you  into  a  court  of  justice.  ...  It  would  equally 
grieve  me  to  have  the  book  supprest,  or  to  have 
it  appear  as  it  is.  It  is  yours  all  over — the  nmi 
imitabile  fulmen." 

It  was  at  Southey's  request  that  Mr.  Murray, 
in  1811,  had  agreed  to  bring  out  Landor's  Count 
Julian:  a  Tragedy.  But  Landor  sent  his  Com- 
mentary to  the  same  house  without  consulting 
Southey,  who  first  heard  of  it,  as  we  have  seen, 
not  from  Llanthony,  where  Landor  was  now 
Uving,  but  from  London.  Mr.  Murray  may  have 
asked  him  to  look  over  the  proof-sheets  of  the 
work — or  rather  of  portions  of  it,  for  Southey 
had  not  yet  seen  the  Dedication  or  the  Postscript — 
in  the  hope  that  the  author  might  be  induced  by 
a  third  party  to  tone  down  certain  passages.  This 
at  least  seems  a  fair  inference  from  letters  which 
have  still  to  be  quoted. 

The  first  is  Landor's  reply,  dated  February  15, 
1812,  to  his  friend.  Had  he  never  mentioned, 
he  asked  Southey,  that  he  was  writing  this  same 
Commentary  ?  In  truth,  Landor  proceeds,  he  had 
a  habit  of  not  recollecting  how  much  or  how 
little  of  his  thoughts  and  intentions  he  had 
imparted  to  his   correspondents,   to  whom  there- 

'  See  note  on  p.  146. 


ORIGIN   OF  THE   "  COMMENTARY "  xi 

fore  he  must  sometimes  appear  the  most  barren 
of  tautologists  and  sometimes  more  reserved  than 
a  Jesuit  or  a  Quaker.  What  a  mistake,  though, 
it  was  to  judge  people  by  their  letters ;  or,  for 
that  matter,  by  anything  they  write.  Look  at 
those  letters  of  some  eminent  authors  then  recently 
pubUshed,  and  how  the  world  was  taken  in  by 
them.  "  Why,"  says  Landor,  "  not  twenty  men 
know  that  Addison  and  Pope  abounded  in  the 
worst  basenesses,  or  that  Swift  was  anything 
better  than  a  satirist  and  misanthropist." 

But  about  the  Commentary,  Landor  would  do 
precisely  as  Southey  recommended.  Would 
Southey  point  out  other  passages  which  had 
better  be  cancelled.  It  had  come  to  be  written, 
Landor  explained,  in  this  way.  He  had  been 
trying  to  compose  an  oration  which  should  be 
more  in  the  Athenian  style  than  speeches  delivered 
in  the  English  Parliament  or  the  French  Academy. 
Beginning  with  an  apology  for  praising  the  Uving 
rather  than  the  dead,  he  had  pronounced  a  eulogy 
on  Warren  Hastings,  comparing  him  with  Charles 
James  Fox  but  admitting  that  the  great  Indian 
ruler  might  possibly  have  been  deaf  to  the  voice 
of  misery  and  of  justice.  Then  he  had  compared 
him  with  Lord  Peterborough  and  likewise  with 
Wellington,  proving  to  his  own  satisfaction  that 
WeUington  was  at  any  rate  the  equal  either  of 
Peterborough  or  Hastings.      But    of  what  avail 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

to  write  orations  in  the  Athenian  or  any  other 

style  ? 

"After  all,  who  will  read  anything  I  write? 
One  enemy,  an  adept  in  bookery  and  reviewship, 
can  without  talents  and  without  industry,  suppress 
in  a  great  degree  all  my  labour,  as  easily  as  a 
mischievous  boy  could  crush  with  a  roller  a  whole 
bed  of  crocuses.  Yet  I  would  not  destroy  what 
I  had  written.  It  filled,  indeed,  but  eight  or  nine 
sheets  ;  interlined,  it  is  true,  in  a  thousand  places 
and  everywhere  close.  I  transferred,  then,  what- 
ever I  could  conveniently,  with  some  observations 
I  had  written  on  Trotter's  silly  book,  and  preserved 
nearly  half,  I  think,  by  adopting  this  plan." 

Landor  is  amazed  that  Mr.  Murray  should 
object  to  publish  his  Dedication  to  Madison, 
President  of  the  United  States.  In  his  own 
opinion  it  was  a  very  temperate  effusion,  and,  he 
believes,  not  ineloquent.  America  had  not  de- 
clared war  against  us  yet ;  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
hostihties  did  not  begin  till  the  following  summer  ; 
and  Landor  wished  to  point  out  what  harm  a 
war  would  do  to  America.  How  deplorable  that 
free  men  should  contend  with  the  free  !  The 
Dedication  was  the  best  thing  he  had  ever  written, 
and  contained,  he  said,  the  best  part  of  the  afore- 
said oration.  He  would  ask  Mr.  Murray  to  send 
it  to  Southey,  along  with  a  piece  aimed  at  Saurin, 
Attorney-General  of  Ireland,  but  not  mentioning 
that    gentleman    by  name,   nor   subject,   Landor 


HISTORICAL   PARALLELS         xiii 

thinks,  to  the  cognisance  even  of  an  Attorney- 
General's  law.  As  the  piece  in  question  is  in 
the  Postscript  to  the  Commentaj-y  and  is  in- 
cluded in  the  present  volume,  the  reader  may 
form  his  own  opinion  as  to  Landor's  interpretation 
of  the  law  of  libel. 

Thus  we  have  it  from  Landor  that  he  had 
composed  an  oration,  portions  of  which  he  after- 
wards incorporated  in  the  Commentary  and  in  a 
Dedication  prefixed  to  it.  The  parallels  between 
Warren  Hastings  and  Fox  and  between  the  Earl 
of  Peterborough  and  Wellington  appear  to  have 
been  discarded.  I  can  find  no  trace  of  the  former 
in  other  works  by  Landor,  but  Peterborough  has 
an  imaginary  conversation  with  Lord  Chatham, 
and  a  remark  made  in  the  conversation  between 
Talleyrand  and  Louis  XVIII.  may  have  been 
suggested  by  some  passage  in  the  missing  parallel. 
"  Fortunate,"  the  French  statesman  is  made  to 
say,  "  that  the  conqueror  of  France  bears  no  resem- 
blance to  the  conqueror  of  Spain.  Peterborough 
(I  shudder  at  the  idea)  would  have  ordered  a  file 
of  soldiers  to  seat  your  majesty  in  your  travelhng 
carriage,  and  would  have  reinstalled  you  at 
Hartwell."  ^ 

Very  characteristic  of  Landor  is  the  plea  that  his 
memory — a  singularly  retentive  one — was  apt  to 
play  him  false.     So  also  is  the  notion  that  GifFord, 

*  landor's  Workg^  iii.  388, 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

editor  of  The  Quarterly  Review,  lay  ever  in  wait 
for  him.  Already,  it  will  be  noted,  he  had  learnt 
that  Mr.  Murray  was  uneasy  about  the  Dedica- 
tion. On  this  point  there  is  other  evidence. 
GifFord,  who  was  furious  about  Landor's  pamph- 
let, had  written  to  Mr.  Murray  :  "  I  never  read 
so  rascally  a  thing  as  the  Dedication.  It  shows 
Landor  to  have  a  most  rancorous  and  malicious 
heart.  Nothing  but  a  rooted  hatred  of  his  country 
could  have  made  him  dedicate  his  Jacobinical  book 
to  the  most  contemptible  wretch  that  ever  crept 
into  authority"  ^ — James  Madison,  that  is,  President 
of  the  United  States. 

One  can  but  hope  that  Landor  was  spared  the 
perusal  of  this  appreciation  of  his  character. 
Southey,  it  is  plain,  did  his  best  to  avert  an 
explosion.  His  reply  to  Landor's  letter  is  a 
masterpiece  of  tact.  Writing  on  February  21, 
1812,  he  told  his  friend  that  he  had  now  read 
the  Dedication  and  Postso'ipt^  and  found  them 
full  of  perilous  stuff;  but  he  stated  his  objections 
so  politely  that  even  Landor  could  not  have 
taken  offence.  He  thought  Landor  had  "  plucked 
George  Rose  most  unmercifully."  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Southey  declared.  Rose  had  done  more 
good  than  the  whole  gang  of  reformers  had  even 
proposed    to  do.      "The   encouragement    of   the 

*  Memoirs  of  John  Murray,  1891,  i.  199.  The  American  President 
was  spoken  of  more  civilly  by  The  Quarterly  Review,  April,  1878,  in  an 
article  on  the  life  and  times  of  President  Madison. 


PERILOUS  PASSAGES  xv 

benefit  societies^  the  population  and  poor  returns, 
and  the  naval  schools  we  owe  to  G.  Rose."  But 
the  passages  which  were  either  distinctly  action- 
able or  likely,  if  published,  to  give  their  author 
other  cause  for  regret,  were  those,  Southey  wrote, 
relating  to  Croker ;  the  recommendation  for  with- 
holding supplies ;  the  mention  of  Lord  Chatham, 
Lord  Riversdale,  Fellowes,  and  Kett ;  and  what 
was  said  of  the  Irish  Attorney- General.  Southey 's 
letter  ended  as  follows  : 

"  Your  prose  is  as  much  your  own  as  your 
poetry.  There  is  a  life  and  vigour  in  it  to  which 
I  know  no  parallel.  It  has  the  poignancy  of 
champagne  and  the  body  of  English  October. 
Neither  you  nor  Murray  gave  me  any  hint  that 
the  Commentary  was  yours,  but  I  could  not  look 
into  these  pages  without  knowing  that  it  could 
not  be  the  work  of  any  other  man.  God  bless 
you.— R.  S." 

In  the  same  letter  Southey  advanced  the  theory, 
which  sounds  oddly  enough  now,  that  President 
Madison  was  in  the  pay  of  Bonaparte.  "  The 
American  Government,"  he  said,  "  dream  of  con- 
quering Canada  on  the  one  hand,  and  Mexico 
on  the  other ;  and  happy  would  Bonaparte  be  if 
he  could  see  them  doing  his  work." 

Landor's  reply  was  dated  March  2,  1812.  He 
perceived,  he  said,  that  Mr.  Murray  was  inclined 
to  suppress  the  Commentary ;   "  whether  for  pay. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

or  prejudice,  or  fear,  I  cannot  tell."  It  had  not 
been  advertised  among  forthcoming  books,  though 
Mr.  Murray  had  received  it  in  December.  As 
for  Southey's  suspicions  about  Madison,  Landor 
could  never  believe  that  the  President  was  in 
Bonaparte's  pay,  or  that  Americans  need  be  paid 
to  resent  the  indignities  and  hardships  they  suffered 
under  our  tyrannical  maritime  laws.  The  Orders 
in  Council  ought  to  have  been  revoked.  "  I  pray 
fervently  to  God,"  says  Landor,  "that  no  part 
of  America  may  be  desolated  ;  that  her  wilder- 
nesses may  be  the  bowers  and  arbours  of  liberty  ; 
that  the  present  restrictions  on  her  commerce 
may  have  no  other  effect  than  to  destroy  the 
cursed  trafficking  and  tricking  which  debases 
the  brood  worse  than  felonies  and  larcenies  ;  and 
that  nothing  may  divert  their  attention  from  their 
own  immense  neighbourhood,  or  from  the  de- 
termination of  helping  to  set  free  every  town 
and  village  of  their  continent." 

A  war,  liandor  went  on  to  say,  between  England 
and  America  would  be  a  civil  war;  a  detestable 
thing,  only  to  be  pardoned  when  there  was  some 
ferocious  and  perfidious  tyrant  to  be  brought  to 
justice.  The  two  peoples  spoke  the  same  language. 
The  Americans  read  Paradise  Lost.  Their  children, 
if  not  consumed  with  fire  and  sword,  would  indulge 
their  mild  and  generous  affections  in  the  perusal 
of   Southey's    Curse   of  Kehama.      Surely    there 


AUTHOR  AND   PUBLISHER       xvii 

must  still  be  in  America  many  who  retained  in 
aU  their  purity  the  principles  which  had  driven 
their  ancestors  from  England ;  and  one  such 
family,  Landor  declared,  was  worth  all  the  tur- 
bulent slaves  and  nobles  in  Poland,  or  all  the 
thoughtless  heads  devoted  for  Ferdinand  VII.  of 
Spain. 

A  day  or  two  after  he  despatched  this  letter, 
Landor  received  from  Southey  further  information 
about  Mr.  Murray's  attitude.     Southey  wrote  : 

"  I  have  a  letter  this  evening  from  Murray, 
which  I  would  enclose  to  you  if  it  were  not  for 
the  time  which  would  be  lost  in  sending  it  round 
for  a  frank.  The  sum  of  it  is  that  it  would  relieve 
his  mind  from  some  very  natural  and  very  un- 
pleasant feelings  if  you  would  allow  him  to  procure 
another  publisher  for  this  Commentary,  into  whose 
hands  he  will  deliver  it  ready  for  publication,  and 
with  whom  he  will  settle  for  you.  This  is  purely 
a  matter  of  feeling  and  not  of  fear.  He  is,  on  the 
score  of  The  Quarterly  Review,  under  obligations 
to  Canning,  and  would  on  that  account  have 
refused  to  publish  any  personal  attack  upon  him. 
The  manuscript  he  never  read,  looking  forward 
to  the  perusal  of  the  book  as  a  pleasure.  What 
he  wishes  will  be  no  inconvenience  to  you,  and  no 
doubt  you  will  readily  assent  to  it. 

"  *  I  confess,'  he  says,  '  I  hesitatingly  propose 
this,  for  I  fear  even  you  could  not  now  speak  of 
this  to  the  author  in  any  way  that  would  not 
offend  him.  I  will,  however,  leave  it  entirely  to 
you  ;  and  if  you  say  nothing  about  it,  I  will  publish 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

it  without  any  trouble  to  you  or  Mr.  L.,  however 
painful,  fi'om  my  peculiar  situation,  it  will  prove 
to  me.'  These  are  his  words.  For  my  own  part, 
I  should  feel  any  fear  of  giving  you  offence  as  the 
only  thing  which  could  occasion  it.  It  is  but  for 
you  to  signify  your  assent  to  Murray  in  a  single 
hne,  and  the  business  is  settled  without  any  injury 
to  any  person's  feelings.  That  it  is  purely  a  matter 
of  feeling  with  him  I  verily  believe.  The  not 
reading  the  manuscript  was  a  compliment  to  the 
author,  and  a  mark  of  confidence  in  him." 

The  late  Dr.  de  Nod  Walker,  who  knew  Landor 
well,  told  me  that  there  were  only  three  men  whose 
remonstrances  the  irascible  genius  could  always 
listen  to  without  losing  his  temper.  The  amiable 
Southey  was  one  of  them.  Dr.  Parr  was  doubtless 
another,  and  Francis  Hare  may  have  been  the 
third.  Southey 's  letter,  just  now  quoted,  produced 
nothing  worse  than  a  threat  from  Landor  that  he 
would  borrow  £5,000  and  start  a  private  printing 
press,  whence  could  be  issued,  without  the  aid 
or  obstruction  of  publishers,  pamphlets  which 
would  set  the  public  mind  more  erect,  and  throw 
ministerial  factions  into  the  dust.  As  for  the 
Commentary  it  was  condemned,  he  said,  to  eternal 
night.  He  had  just  written  to  Mr.  Murray  and 
sent  Southey  the  extract  from  his  letter.  This  is 
what  he  had  said  : 

"Deceived  or  not  deceived,  the  fault  was  not 
mine  that  you  first  undertook  it  yourself,  that  you 


"THAT   SCOUNDREL   CANNING"  xix 

next  proposed  to  find  another  who  would  under- 
take it,  and  that  at  last  you  relapse  even  from 
that  alternative.  I  am  not  surprised  that,  in 
these  circumstances,  you  find  some  vexation.  Had 
you  in  the  beginning  pointed  out  such  passages 
as  you  considered  dangerous  to  publish  (although 
this  very  danger  would  have  shown  the  necessity 
of  them),  I  would  have  given  them  another 
appearance  and  stationed  them  in  another  place." 

To  Southey  Landor  imparted  his  conviction 
that  Mr.  Murray  had  been  persuaded  to  withdraw 
from  any  part  in  the  publication  of  the  Commentary 
"  either  by  Canning  or  some  other  scoundrel  whom 
I  have  piquetted  in  the  work."  This  ingenious 
theory  is  followed  by  some  remarks  on  the  law 
of  libel.  Landor  had  been  reading  the  corre- 
spondence of  Erasmus.  "  How  infinitely  more 
freedom,"  he  observes,  "as  well  as  more  learning, 
was  there  in  those  days  I "  What  now  was  to  be 
desired,  he  thought,  was  to  adopt  the  principle 
ne  quid  falsi  dicere  audeat,  ne  quid  veri  non 
audeat.  In  other  words,  there  should  be  no 
libel  without  falsehood.  Landor  winds  up  with 
a  hit  at  the  followers  of  the  late  Mr.  Fox,  saying : 

"It  is  delightful  to  see  how  the  Foxites  have 
disabled  themselves  from  serving  the  Regent. 
The  people  will  be  able  to  pay  taxes  two  years 
more,  and  these  fellows  wiU  then  excite  them 
to  some  expression  of  their  discontent ;  they  will 
force  themselves  into  the  places  of  Government ; 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

they  will  govern  with  as  much  corruption  and 
fraudulence  as  their  predecessors ;  and  as  much 
timber  will  be  wanted  for  gibbets  as  for  fleets." 

To  return  to  the  Commentary.  "Condemned 
to  eternal  night "  was  Landor's  own  verdict ;  and 
but  for  an  accident,  the  sentence  would  have  been 
executed.  Southey,  however,  as  we  have  seen, 
kept  a  copy  of  it  which  passed,  after  his  death, 
into  the  hands  of  I^ord  Houghton.  What  that 
lover  of  books  and  excellent  critic  thought  of 
it  we  know  from  his  essay  on  Landor's  life  and 
works  first  published  in  The  Edinburgh  'Review, 
and  reprinted,  with  additions,  in  Monographs.  It 
contains,  he  wrote,  "perhaps  more  fair  and 
moderate  political  and  literary  judgments,  delivered 
in  his  own  humour,  than  any  work  of  his  earHer 
or  maturer  years.  It  should  be  reprinted  in 
any  new  edition  of  his  collected  works."  liOrd 
Houghton  quoted  more  than  one  vigorous  passage 
from  the  Commentary,  considering  that  these 
were  not  inapplicable  to  the  contests  and  difficulties 
of  the  time  when  he  himself  was  writing.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  the  reader  may  light  upon 
other  passages  which  have  their  bearing  on  the 
questions  of  our  own  day. 

Landor,  when  he  wrote  the  Commentary,  was 
a  man  of  six  and  thirty.  He  was  living  with 
his  young  wife — who  was  not  at  all  interested 
citlier  in  politics    or  literature — in  the  wilds  of 


LANDOR  AS  A    SOLDIER  xxi 

Llanthony,  his  Welsh  estate.  Already  known 
to  men  of  letters,  or  to  some  of  them,  as  the 
author  of  Gebir,  that  curious  romance  of  the 
Hyksos  invaders  of  Egypt,  he  had  also  published 
a  volume  or  two  of  occasional  poetry,  much  of  it 
in  Latin,  and  at  the  instigation  of  Sir  Robert 
Adair  and  Dr,  Parr  had  contributed  political 
articles  to  The  Courier.  In  1808,  laying  aside 
the  pen  for  the  sword,  he  had  gone,  well  furnished 
with  money,  to  aid  the  Spaniards  in  their  struggle 
against  Bonaparte.  On  reaching  Coruna  he  gave 
ten  thousand  reals  to  the  cause  and,  raising  a 
troop  of  volunteer  cavalry,  set  out  to  join  the 
Spanish  general,  Don  Joachim  Blake. 

When  Spain  from  base  oppression  rose, 
I  foremost  rushed  against  her  foes — 

he  says  in  one  of  his  poems ;  but,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  skirmishes,  he  saw  no  fighting, 
and  returned  to  England,  with  the  honorary 
rank  of  Colonel  in  the  Spanish  army,  before  the 
close  of  the  year.  The  adventure  must  be  recalled 
because  it  helps  to  explain  some  of  the  references 
in  the  Commentary  to  the  operations  in  the 
Peninsula. 

The  three  years  that  followed  Landor's  Spanish 
campaign  were  spent  at  Bath  and  Llanthony.  Dur- 
ing this  time  he  wrote  Count  Julian:  a  Tragedy ^ 
spent  large  sums  on  projects  for  developing  his 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

Welsh  estate,  and  married.  Early  in  the  spring 
of  1811  he  was  at  a  ball  in  the  Bath  Assembly 
rooms,  and,  his  eye  faUing  on  an  unknown  beauty, 
he  had  exclaimed :  "  By  heaven  I  that's  the  nicest 
girl  in  the  room,  and  I'll  marry  her."  The  wedding 
took  place  about  the  end  of  May,^  and  before  the 
close  of  the  year  Landor  was  at  work  on  the 
Commentai'y. 

Landor's  allusions  elsewhere  to  Charles  James 
Fox  are  not  numerous,  and  the  more  important 
ones  may  be  quoted.  In  his  Imaginary  Conver- 
sation with  an  English  visitor  at  Florence  he 
represents  himself  as  saying: 

"  I  believe  there  has  rarely  been  a  weaker  or  a 
more  profligate  statesman  than  Mr.  Fox  :  but  he 
was  fiiendly  and  aiFectionate  ;  he  was  a  gentleman 
and  a  scholar.  When  I  heard  of  his  decease,  and 
how  he  had  been  abandoned  at  Chiswick  by  his 
colleagues  in  the  ministry,  one  of  whom.  Lord 
Grey,  he  had  raised  to  notice  and  distinction,  I 
grieved  that  such  indignity  should  have  befallen 
him.  .  .  .  Many  were  then  lamenting  him,  all  who 
had  ever  known  him  personally;  for  in  private  life 
he  was  so  amiable  that  his  poHtical  vices  seemed 
to  them  but  weaknesses." 

In  what  he  called  "  Reflections  on  Athens  at 
the    death    of   Pericles,"    printed    with    the    first 

^  The  register  of  St.  James's  Church,  Bath,  has  the  following  entry  : 
May  24,  1811,  M'^alter  Savage  Landor  to  Julia  Thuillier,  a  minor,  of 
Walcot.     Witnesses,  James  Thuillier,  Thos:  Barrow,  Susan  Amyatt. 


SOME   OPINIONS   ON   FOX        xxiii 

edition  of  his  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  Landor  said 
of  Fox  : 

"  He  was  unlucky  in  all  his  projects.  On  one 
occasion  he  said  he  had  a  peace  in  his  pocket,  when 
he  no  more  had  a  peace  in  it  than  he  had  a  guinea. 
He  was,  however,  less  democratic,  less  subversive 
of  social  order  and  national  dignity,  than  his  rival." 

In  the  letter  to  The  Examiner,  which  has  already 
been  referred  to,  Landor  wrote  : 

"  My  intimacy  with  the  friends  and  near  relatives 
of  Mr.  Fox  would  certainly  have  closed  my  lips 
against  the  utterance  of  the  appellation  of  scoundrel 
in  regard  to  him.  He  had  more  and  warmer 
friends  than  any  statesman  upon  record  :  he  was 
the  delight  of  social  life,  the  ornament  of  domestic. 
Mr.  Fox  was  a  man  of  genius,  and  (what  in  the 
present  day  is  almost  as  rare)  a  gentleman." 

An  epigram  on  Fox  will  be  found  among  Landor 's 
Latin  poems. 

In  reprinting  the  Commentary  it  has  been  thought 
better  to  break  it  up  into  chapters,  to  provide  a  few 
notes,  and  to  expand  the  extracts  from  Trotter's 
Memx)irs  which,  though  widely  read  at  the  time, 
are  now  little  known.  The  additions  made  to  the 
extracts  are  within  brackets  ;  the  footnotes,  chapter 
and  page  headings,  table  of  contents  and  index 
are  all  new.  A  few  corrections  in  the  text  have 
been  made  from  Landor's  own  Hst  of  errata.  With 
one  or  two  exceptions  his  spelling  has  been  followed, 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

but  it  seemed  an  excess  of  pedantry  to  repeat  such 
solecisms  as  Chai'lesis^  Foods,  Gustaviisis,  for  the 
usual  form  of  the  possessive  case.  A  couple  of 
lines  in  his  poem  of  "  Gunlaug  and  Helena  "  were 
thus  printed  in  the  earlier  editions: 

0 !   could  I  loose  our  blissis  bar, 
I  burn  for  wedlock  and  for  war. 

In  the  rare  Simonidea,  where  the  poem  is  first 
found,  he  appends  a  note  saying: 

"  I  am  forced  to  adopt  here  the  oldest  and  best 
form  of  spelling.  In  future  I  shall  employ  it  with- 
out force.  It  is  impossible  that  one  s  following 
another  should  make  a  separate  syllable,  though  it 
might  be  the  sign  of  one." 

The  collected  edition  of  Landor's  Works  referred 
to  in  the  notes  is  that  brought  out  by  Mr.  Forster 
in  1876.^  Landor's  Letters  addressed  to  Lord 
Liverpool  on  the  Preliminanes  of  Peace,  which  are 
once  or  twice  quoted,  were  published  anonymously 
in  1814;  but  the  book  is  not  in  the  British  Museum, 
and  I  have  only  met  with  two  copies  of  it,  one  of 
which,  with  corrections  in  the  author's  handwriting, 
I  found  among  other  papers  in  Landor's  writing- 
desk.  Other  works  cited  in  the  notes  will  be 
well  known  ;  except,  perhaps,  a  pamphlet  entitled  : 
CircuTiistantial  Details  of  the  Long  Illness  and  Last 

'  The  Works  and  Life  of  Walter  Savage  Landor.  Chapman  &  Hall, 
1876. 


A   SCARCE   VOLUME  xxv 

Moments  of  the  Right  Hon.  Charles  James  Fooc^ 
together  with  Strictures  on  his  Public  and  PHvate 
LifCy  dedicated  to  Lord  Morpeth.  Second  edition, 
1806. 

The  collation  of  the  copy  of  the  Commentary  in 
Lord  Crewe's  possession  is  as  follows :  Octavo, 
5 J  by  8 J  inches.  Fly-leaf  with  Lord  Houghton  s 
manuscript  note  on  the  reverse  ;  short  title  (with 
blank  reverse),  pp.  i-ii ;  title-page  (with  blank 
reverse),  pp.  iii-iv  ;  Dedication,  pp.  v-xiii ;  p.  xiv 
is  blank ;  Advertisement,  pp.  xv,  xvi ;  Preface, 
pp.  i-xxxv ;  p.  xxxvi  is  blank  ;  Text,  pp.  37-227 ; 
an  unnumbered  page  of  errata  and  a  blank  leaf. 
The  imprint  at  the  foot  of  the  page  of  errata 
reads  :  "  T.  Davison,  Lombard  Street,  Whitefriars, 
London." 

S.  W. 


COMMENTARY 

ON 

MEMOIRS    OF    MR.    FOX 


COMMENTAEY 


ON 


Memoirs  of  Mb.  Fox 


LATELY  WEITTEN 


LONDON 

PRINTED  FOR  THE  AUTHOR  BY 

T.   DAVISON,   LOMBARD   STEEET,   FLEET  STREET 

AND   SOLD  BY  J.   MURRAY,   FLEET  STREET 

1812 


DEDICATION 

THIS  COMMENTARY  IS  RESPECTFULLY 
INSCRIBED 

TO    THE 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES^ 

The  volume,  Sir,  which  I  offer  to  your  attention 
is  written  by  a  man  who  has  neither  hopes  nor 
fears  from  any  faction  in  this  country ;  who  never 
served  any,  who  never  courted  any.  In  com- 
menting on  the  Memoirs  of  Mr.  Fox,  it  must 
refer  occasionally  to  his  adversary.  It  contains 
such  observations  as  experience  would  suggest  on 
the  conduct  of  those  two  statesmen,^  whose  talents 
a  little  while  since  appeared  the  most  conspicuous  ; 
but  who  now,  on  their  barren  eminences,  serve 
only  to  light  up  a  beacon  for  their  countr)rmen, 
not  to  mistake  a  torrent  of  eloquence,  or  a  brilli- 
ancy of  reply,  for  the  characteristics  of  wisdom 
and  the  tests  of  policy.  Unhappily,  each  of  these 
ministers  hath   left  his  party   and   his   advocates 

'  James  Madison,  fourth  President  of  the  United  States ;  elected 
1809,  re-elected  1813. 
'  William  Pitt,  the  younger,  and  Charles  James  Fox. 

6 


6  DEDICATION 

behind  him,  and  on]  the  system  of  the  one  or  the 
other  will  the  government  of  this  kingdom  be 
conducted.  Each  faction  is  aware  of  its  errors, 
yet  considers  it  a  just  homage  to  the  memory 
of  its  prophet  to  toil  through  the  same  wilderness 
imto  their  natural  termination. 

Although  the  country  groans  under  heavier 
taxes  than  the  most  rapacious  invader  ever  imposed 
on  the  conquered ;  although  from  this  little  island, 
in  a  period  of  adverse  and  of  hopeless  war,^  more 
is  confiscated  than  was  extorted  by  Nero  ^  himself, 
amidst  all  his  prodigalities,  from  the  whole  world 
at  peace ;  yet  the  partizans  of  every  administra- 
tion talk  of  the  prudence  and  successes  of  their 
respective  leaders.  We  have  a  surer  criterion. 
Supposing  a  country  not  to  be  actually,  nor  to 
have  lately  been,  in  the  occupation  of  an  enemy, 
there  is  one  infaUible  way  of  judging  whether  a 
ruler  rules  it  well  or  otherwise.  Are  the  people  in 
abundance  ?  in  security  ?  If  they  are,  they  are 
well  governed.  If  they  are  not,  and  have  not  been 
for  several  years,  and  are  not  likely  to  be  for 
several  years  more,  then  have  they  been,  and  are 

*  Speaking  of  William  Pitt,  Mr.  Lecky  says :  "  Until  his  death 
English  operations  on  the  Continent  present  few  features  except  those 
of  extreme  costliness  and  almost  uniform  failure." — England  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  v.  347. 

*  "  Italy,  in  the  time  of  Nero,  contained,  at  the  lowest  calculation, 
twenty-six  millions  of  inhabitants,  and  did  not  pay  so  much  in  taxes 
as  the  city  of  London,  with  its  appurtenances,  'in  the  late  war." — 
Landob,  Imag.  Conv.,  1826,  ii.  167. 


THE   SCOURGE   OF  WAR  7 

too  surely,  not  under  a  moderate,  and  equable,  and 
protecting  government,  but  under  a  cruel,  de- 
grading, and  ignominious  subjection.  It  is  their 
indefeasible  right  and  bounden  duty  to  destroy  it, 
by  withholding  all  supplies^  from  their  taskmasters, 
and  cutting  off  all  resources.  Far  be  every  such 
condition  of  things  from  England  and  America. 

I  presume  to  dedicate  this  book  to  the  wisest 
and  most  dignified  chief  magistrate  that  presides  in 
the  present  day  over  the  destinies  of  a  nation, 
because  on  his  humanity  and  power,  the  little 
freedom  that  remains  among  his  fellow-creatures 
now  principally  depends. 

You  have  witnessed.  Sir,  how  dreadful  has  been 
the  scourge  of  war,  to  countries  less  deserving  and 
less  capable  of  liberty  than  America.  To  bemoan 
it  for  the  horrors  of  death  and  the  pangs  of 
separation  would  be  only  to  raise  the  animal  cry 
common  to  our  species  in  all  ages ;  but  the  wars 
arising  from  the  French  revolution  have  been 
wars  against  all  social  and  hberal  principles,  all 
virtues,  all  conscience.  Wherever  they  have  ex- 
tended no  man  has  a  home,  no  man  has  a  country ; 
old  attachments  are  torn  away,  new  ones  are  dis- 
couraged. Between  the  government  of  Napoleon 
and  the  British,  no  people  is  permitted  to  regulate 
its   own    affairs,   to    renovate    or    strengthen    its 

'  Southey  wanted  to  omit  "  the  recommendation  to  withhold 
supplies." — Forsteb's  Landor,  i.  362. 


8  DEDICATION 

institutions,  to  chastise,  or  correct,  or  abolish,  its 
abuses.  We  rivet  the  chain,  he  breaks  the  limb  in 
striking  the  link  asunder. 

Your  importance,  your  influence,  and,  I  believe, 
your  wishes,  rest  entirely  on  the  comforts  and 
happiness  of  your  people.  A  declaration  of 
hostihties  against  Great  Britain  ^  would  much  and 
grievously  diminish  them,  however  popular  it 
might  be  in  the  commencement,  however  glorious 
it  might  be  in  the  result.  My  apprehension  lest 
this  popularity  should  in  any  degree  sway  your 
counsels  is  the  sole  reason  by  which  I  am  deter- 
mined in  submitting  to  you  these  considerations. 
Popularity  in  a  free  state  like  yours,  where  places 
are  not  exposed  to  traffic,  nor  dignities  to  accident,'^ 
is  a  legitimate  and  noble  desire  ;  and  the  prospects 
of  territory  are,  to  nations  growing  rich  and 
powerful,  what  the  hopes  of  progeny  are  to  in- 
dividuals of  rank  and  fortune.  A  war  between 
America  and  England  would  at  all  times  be  a 
civil  war.  Our  origin,  our  language,  our  interests, 
are  the  same.  Would  it  not  be  deplorable,  would 
it  not  be  intolerable  to  reason  and  humanity, 
that  the  language  of  a  Locke  and  a  Milton  should 

>  The  American  declaration  of  war  against  England  was  signed  by 
President  Madison  on  June  18,  1812. 

*  "Dignities  exposed  to  accident."  When  the  Duke  of  Richmond, 
in  the  House  of  Lords  (June  14,  1779)  taunted  Thurlow  with  his  low 
birth,  the  Chancellor  retorted  by  suggesting  that  the  noble  lord  was 
''the  accident  of  an  accident." — Stanhope's  History  of  England,  vi. 
262. 


ENGLAND  AND  AMERICA  9 

convey  and  retort  the  sentiments  of  a  Bonaparte 
and  a  Robespierre  ?  Your  merchants  have  endured 
much  privation  and  much  injury ;  but  their  capital 
has  only  been  thrown  back  on  their  own  country, 
and  given  a  fresh  vigour  to  the  truest  and  most 
practical  independence.  You  have  all  the  requisite 
materials,  and  nearly  all  the  requisite  hands,  for 
manufacturing  whatever  you  can  consume.  Nothing 
but  a  war  can  prevent  the  complete  and  almost 
immediate  attainment  of  this  object.  Consider, 
Sir,  what  are  the  two  nations — if  I  must  call 
them  two — which  are  about,  not  to  terminate, 
but  to  extend  their  animosities  by  acts  of  violence 
and  slaughter.  If  you  think  as  I  do — and  free 
men,  allowing  for  the  degree  of  their  capacities, 
generally  think  aUke — you  will  divide  the  creatures 
of  the  Almighty  into  three  parts  :  first,  men 
who  enjoy  the  highest  perfection  of  Hberty  and 
civilisation ;  secondly,  men  who  Hve  under  the 
despotism  of  one  person  or  more,  and  are  not 
permitted  to  enjoy  their  reason  for  the  promotion 
of  their  happiness  ;  and  thirdly,  the  brute  creation, 
which  is  subject  also  to  arbitrary  will,  and  whose 
happiness  their  slender  power  of  reasoning  (for 
some  power  they  have)  is  inadequate  to  promote. 
These  three  classes,  in  my  view  of  the  subject, 
stand  at  equal  distances.  I  confess,  the  utter 
extinction  of  the  whole  Chinese  empire,  and  of 
every  mortal  in  it,  would  affect  me  infinitely  less 

2 


10  DEDICATION 

than  the  slaughter  of  a  thousand  Tyrolese,  with 
the  subjugation  of  the  remainder.^  Because  in  a 
series  of  years  the  one  country  would  be  covered 
again,  Uke  the  surface  of  a  pond,  with  its  minute 
and  indistinguishable  leaves,  as  at  present,  or  men 
more  conscious  of  their  dignity  would  succeed. 
But  the  other  would  impress  the  rising  generation 
with  a  memorable  and  most  disheartening  example, 
how  futile  and  vain  may  be  the  aspirations  of 
virtue,  how  sterile  may  be  the  love  of  our 
country,  how  triumphant  and  insuperable  may  be 
despotism. 

Providence  hath  ordained  you,  Sir,  not  only  to 
preside  over  the  United  States,  but  to  watch  with 
vigilance,  and  to  protect  with  jealousy,  the  welfare 
of  a  whole  continent.  Indeed,  the  peace  and 
prosperity  of  your  own  people  require  that  all 
your  neighbours  should  enjoy  the  same  equality 
of  laws,  the  same  freedom  from  foreign  and 
turbulent  and  conflicting  governments.  In  the 
struggle  of  Spain  for  independence,  it  would  have 
been  unjust  and  wicked  to  have  detached  from 
her  the  Southern  colonies.  That  independence  is 
now  impossible,^  because  it  is  unwished.  Instead 
of  aiming  her  whole  force   against  the   usurper, 

'  "  I  can  never  be  induced  to  imagine  that  the  extinction  of  all  the 
tribes  in  Africa,  and  all  in  Asia,  with  half  of  the  dwellers  in  Europe, 
would  be  so  lamentable  as  the  destruction  of  Missolonghi,  or  even  as 
the  death  of  Bozzaris. " — Landor,  Works,  vi.  294. 

*  Chili  declared  its  independence  of  Spain  in  1810.  Paraguay  rose 
against  the  Spanish  yoke  in  the  following  year. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LIBERTY  11 

she  has  directed  great  part  of  it  to  subdue  the 
spirit  of  liberty  in  that  hemisphere  where  alone 
the  spirit  of  liberty  never  will  be  subdued.  You 
have  little  necessity  and  little  time  for  deliberation. 
Terminate  the  sufferings,  confirm  the  hopes,  fulfil 
the  ardent,  the  incessant  wishes  of  a  gallant  and 
grateful  people ;  and  never  let  the  repairer  of 
rotten  cabinets  crush  it  under  the  lumber  of  the 
Bourbons.  If  hostilities  should  be  the  consequence 
of  this  glorious  resolution  you  will  have  secured 
to  your  interests  a  warlike  and  powerful  and 
immovable  ally  on  your  own  borders,  and  every 
wise  and  every  free  man  in  all  quarters  of  the 
world  will  call  heaven  to  witness  the  justice  of 
your  cause,  and  pray  most  devoutly  for  your 
success. 


ADVERTISEMENT 

The  appearance  of  this  work  has  been  delayed 
some  time  by  the  scruples  and  remonstrances  of 
the  Publisher.  Finally,  the  Author  chose  rather 
to  cancel  much  than  to  alter  any  thing ;  he 
chose,  in  many  instances,  rather  not  deliver  his 
sentiments  at  aU,  than  to  deliver  them  hesitatingly 
and  ineffectually.  For,  indeed,  what  is  integrity 
but  wholeness  ?  and  how  can  a  writer  be  said  to 
have  spoken  the  truth,  if  he  hath  absconded 
from  any  part  of  it ;  if  he  hath  exposed  and 
abandoned  it  to  misconstructions,  leaving  it  liable 
to  receive  a  fresh  and  different  impression  from 
every  tide  of  humour  and  opinion  ?  To  fall  short 
of  it  is  as  criminal  as  to  exceed  it ;  and  pecu- 
liarly and  miserably  base  is  it,  to  be  terrified 
into  dumbness  by  loud  outcries  or  by  the  peril  of 
laws  falling  down  upon  us,  from  the  alleys  and 
by-paths  we  must  go  through.  At  the  same  time, 
it  is  neither  wise  nor  decorous  to  draw  a  crowd 
after  us  of 

Some  in  rags,  and  some  in  tags, 
And  some  in  silken  gowns^ 

to  raise  a  reputation  by  working  on  the  discom- 
posed passions  of  the  many,  or  on  the  weak 
reasonings  of  the  more. 

'  The  old  nursery  rhyme,  begiuuing :     "  Hark  !  hark  !  the  dogs  do 
bark,  the  beggars  are  come  to  town." 

13 


PREFACE 

When  an  author  writes  on  any  political  sub- 
ject, he  begins  by  assuring  the  reader  of  his 
impartiality.  In  presenting  to  the  public  my 
Commentary  on  the  Memoirs  of  Mr.  Fox,  I  think 
it  necessary  to  premise  what  will  probably  seem 
very  different  from  this  custom  and  this  object. 
I  would  represent  his  actions  to  his  contempo- 
raries as  I  believe  they  will  appear  to  posterity. 
I  would  destroy  the  impression  of  the  book  before 
me,  because  I  am  firmly  persuaded  that  its 
tendency  must  be  pernicious.  The  author  is  an 
amiable  man ;  so  was  the  subject  of  his  memoir. 
But  of  all  the  statesmen  who  have  been  concerned 
in  the  management  of  our  affairs  during  a  reign 
the  most  disastrous  in  our  annals,  the  example 
of  Mr.  Fox,  if  followed  up,  would  be  the  most 
fatal  to  our  interests  and  our  glory.  The  proofs 
and  illustrations  of  this  assertion  will  be  evident 
on  perusing  the  Commentary.  There  is  no  con- 
stitutional principle  which  he  has  not,  at  one 
time,    defended,   at   another   time   assailed.     The 

15 


16  PREFACE 

preservation  of  the  King's  dominions  in  Germany, 
he  said,  was  folly  and  madness  in  Mr.  Pitt ;  in 
his  own  administration  he  had  the  impudence  to 
assert,  that  Hanover  should  be  as  dear  to  an 
Englishman  as  Hampshire.^  A  clear  proof  to 
what  extent  he  knew  the  interests,  or  consulted 
the  feelings,  of  Englishmen.  Pensions  and  sine- 
cures were  abominations.^  He  kisses  the  King's 
hand,  and  sees  his  name  written  out  fairly  again, 
above  its  old  erasure,^  and  shuffles  into  the  House 
to  confirm  the  greatest  sinecure  of  aU,  and  the 
most  flagrant  instance  of  ungenerous  cupidity  that 
any  red-book  in  Europe  has  unfolded.  That  a 
man  should  be  made  auditor  of  his  own  accounts 

*  But  it  was  William  Pitt  the  elder,  not  Mr.  Fox,  who  said  that 
Hanover  ought  to  be  as  dear  to  us  as  Hampshire.  This  was  one  of  the 
"  strong  expressions  "  which  he  used  when,  in  1757,  he  brought  down  to 
the  House  a  message  from  George  H.  asking  for  aid  in  the  defence  of 
the  Electoral  dominions,  and  moved  for  a  grant  of  £200,000.  "  One 
cannot  say  which  was  most  ridiculous,"  Horace  Walpole  wrote, 
''the  richest  prince  in  Europe  begging  alms  for  his  country,  or 
the  great  foe  of  that  country  becoming  its  mendicant  almoner." — 
Walpole,  Memoirs  of  George  11. ,  ii.  313.  See  Stanhope,  History  of 
England,  iv.  90. 

'  In  the  House  of  Commons,  on  March  13,  1797,  Fox  reproached 
Pitt  and  Grenville  with  securing  sinecures  to  themselves,  while  they 
were  loading  the  people  with  taxes. 

»  "  On  the  9th  of  May  [1798]  a  Board  of  Privy  Council  being  held  at 
St.  James's,  Mr.  Faulkner,  as  Clerk  of  the  Council,  presented  the  list 
to  the  King  when  his  Majesty  with  his  own  hand  drew  his  pen  across 
the  name  of  Mr.  Fox.  Mr.  Fox,  in  his  private  letters,  refers  to  this 
event  with  great  equanimity.  '  I  believe,'  he  says,  '  the  late  Duke  of 
Devonshire  is  the  only  instance  in  this  reign  of  a  Privy  Councillor 
being  turned  out  in  England.'" — Stanhope's  Pitt  iii.  128.  Fox,  who 
had  been  made  a  Privy  Councillor  in  March,  1782,  was  removed  in 
1798  for  having  proposed,  at  a  dinner,  the  toast  of  "  our  sovereign,  the 
people."    He  was  reappointed  on  February  6,  1806. 


PRECIPICE   OF   REVOLUTION       17 

with  the  pubhc,  and  receive  a  large  salary  for 
this  auditorship  ;  ^  that,  in  short,  he  should  be  paid 
a  large  salary  for  receiving  one,  and  for  doing  no 
earthly  thing  else,  is  enough  in  itself  to  goad  a 
free  people,  laden  and  overburdened  with  debts, 
to  the  precipice  of  revolution.  It  is  an  absurdity 
so  insulting  to  the  understanding,  as  is  not  to  be 
paralleled  in  any  book  of  mysticism.  The  pro- 
posal of  it  evinces  an  injustice,  a  baseness,  a 
dereliction  of  principle,  so  brutally  bare,  obtrusive, 
and  unblushing,  that,  if  there  be  any  honest  man 
among  his  friends,  and  endowed  with  ordinary 
prudence,  let  him  skulk  into  the  crowd  and  be 
well  supported  by  his  party,  or  never  cast  a 
stone  at  Mr.  Pitt. 

The  conduct  of  the  Whig  minister^  in  regard 
to  Spanish  America  proves  how  wide  is  the 
difference  between  a  debater  and  a  statesman, 
between  the  versatile  suitor  of  popularity  and  the 
true    lover  of  justice.     To   those    who    are    still 

*  Lord  Grenville,  having  formed  the  Ministry  of  all  the  Talents 
(February,  1806)  in  which  he  was  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  was  per- 
mitted by  an  Act  (46  George  III.,  c.  1)  to  execute  the  office  of  Auditor 
of  the  Exchequer  by  deputy.  He  had  held  this  sinecure,  worth  £4,000 
a  year,  since  February,  1794.     See  below,  page  53. 

*  That  Landor  held  Fox  responsible  for  the  disasters  which  befell  our 
military  adventures  iu  South  America  is  proved  by  what  he  says  further 
on  (see  page  126).  The  charge,  however,  is  not  supported  by  the 
facts.  It  was  Windham,  and  not  Fox,  who  was  to  blame.  "  Mr. 
Windliam,"  Lord  Holland  wrote,  "  though  he  plumed  himself  on  his 
disdain  of  all  popular  clamours,  had  greatly  heated  his  imagination  with 
the  prospect  of  indemnifying  ourselves  in  the  new  world  for  the  dis- 
appointments which  we  had  sustained  in  the  old." — Further  Memoirs  of 
the  Wh^  Party,  p.  112. 


18  PREFACE 

gaping  at  his  prophetic  spirit,^  I  would  remark, 
that  an  ingenious  man  who  takes  the  opposite 
side  of  an  argument,  when  rich  and  luxurious 
tradesfolks  are  pricked  and  cockered  into  a  war, 
against  a  revolutionary  and  military  nation,  may 
predict  much  mischief  with  much  certainty.  Mr. 
Pitt,  we  are  informed,  was  equally  aware  of  it, 
but  resigned  his  opinion  to  preserve  his  power. 
Such  also  is  the  mechanism  of  our  polity:  the 
commencement  of  a  war  will  always  concihate  to 
the  interests  of  a  minister  a  very  large  party  of 
the  mercantile  and  monied,  who  are  ready  for 
loans  and  contracts  ;  and  the  aristocracy  is  brought 
closer  to  him  by  the  innumerable  posts  and  em- 
ployments dependent  or  consequent  on  hostilities. 
The  pleasure  of  succeeding  to  this  patronage  was 
not  to  be  resisted  by  a  set  of  people  whose  poverty 
alone  had  made  them  patriots.^     The  freedom  of 

'  FelloweSj  in  The  Critical  Review  for  Marchj  1808,  wrote  of  Fox : 
"His  remonstrances,  his  exhortations  and  suggestions,  like  the  pre- 
dictions of  Cassandra,  to  which  they  were  often  compared,  were 
neglected  and  despised  till  the  time  in  which  they  might  have  been 
executed  had  glided  away.  The  history  of  the  [French]  revolutionary 
war  will  bear  testimony  to  the  truth  of  this  observation." 
'  Compare  the  lines  in  Lander's  Gebir : 

Here  also  those  who  boasted  of  their  zeal. 
And  lov'd  their  country  for  the  spoils  it  gave. 

Book  III.,  286,  1st  ed. 
In  the  passage  that  follows,  Landor  refers  to  the  ill-starred  expedition 
sent  to  Rio  de  la  Plata,  early  in  1807,  under  General  Whitelocke. 
Buenos  Ayres  had  been  taken  in  June,  1806,  by  Sir  Hope  Popham 
and  General  Beresford.  The  news  reached  England  in  September,  and 
extravagant  hopes  were  excited  of  founding  a  British  dominion  in 
South  America.  Whitelocke's  expedition,  in  the  early  part  of  1807, 
ended  in  a  crushing  disaster. 


BUENOS  AYRES  Id 

a  vast  continent,  the  alliance  of  a  generous  people, 
the  various  products  of  a  most  fertile  country,  the 
hopes  held  out  and  pledges  given  by  the  conquerors, 
every  sentiment  of  glory,  every  prospect  of  advan- 
tage, every  regard  to  the  honour  of  those  whose 
intelligence,  promptitude,  and  moderation  had 
secured  the  territory,  must  be  resigned  and 
abandoned,  that  tax-gatherers,  and  excisemen,  and 
commissioners,  and  notaries,  and  purveyors,  and 
governors,  and  deputy-governors,  and  Ueutenant- 
governors  and  deputy-Yiewtensint  governors,  might 
be  appointed  ;^  none  of  them,  however  unimportant, 
from  the  city  or  the  colony,  but  from  the  insides 
and  outsides  of  the  gaming-houses  in  St.  James's 
Street ;  and  that  especial  care  should  be  taken, 
not  to  conciliate  our  new  subjects,  but  to  provide 
for  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  the  best  fitted 
to  exhaust  a  country.  The  people  did  their  duty : 
may  all  people  do  the  same !  They  rose,  and 
crushed  their  oppressors.  No  inquiry  was  insti- 
tuted at  home,  no  culprit  was  punished,  no 
minister  was  arraigned.  A  wretched  man,  whose 
tyranny  and  cowardice  were  notorious  long  before, 
was   declared    unworthy    of    command,    and   this 

•  Speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  June,  1807,  Canning 
denounced  the  late  Ministry  for  their  designs  in  South  America. 
Buenos  Ayres,  he  said,  had  acquired  a  vast  importance  in  their  eyes, 
not  from  its  importance  to  the  commerce,  or  navigation,  or  to  the 
general  resources  of  the  country,  "  but  because  it  was  a  place 
that  afforded  room  for  the  appointment  of  collectors,  comptrollers, 
searchers,  and  tide-waiters." 


20  PREFACE 

important   discovery   was    communicated    in    the 
Gazette} 

Thus  ended  an  expedition,  sent  out  under  the 
same  auspices  as  a  former  one  to  Quiberon,^  and 
another  to  Ferrol.^  In  one  single  chapter  are 
recorded  the  three  most  disgraceful  transactions 
in  British  history ;  and  the  disgrace  is  neither  in 
the  corruption  or  the  fatuity  which  occasioned 
the  choice  of  the  commanders,  nor  in  their 
cowardice  and  incapacity.  These  are  only  the 
sewers  through  which  it  runs.  It  lies  in  the 
basest  of  all  fear:  the  fear  of  looking  back,  the 
fear    of   stopping  to   acknowledge,   or   advancing 


^  General  Whitelocke^  on  his  return  from  his  disastrous  expedition 
to  Buenos  Ayres  (1807),  was  tried  by  court  martial,  cashiered,  and 
declared  unfit  to  serve  the  King  in  any  capacity.  "  What  Whitelocke 
did  in  Buenos  Ayres,"  The  Spectator  said  the  other  day,  "  should  still 
bring  a  blush  to  our  cheek." 

*  The  reference  might  be  to  the  expedition  of  French  Emigres  to 
Quiberon  in  1795.  "  Windham,  the  new  War  Minister,  built  his 
greatest  hopes  on  an  expedition  of  French  aristocrats  and  malcontents 
to  Quiberon  Bay  ;  but  this  force,  sumptuously  provided  with  money 
and  munitions  of  war,  and  supported  by  a  powerful  fleet,  was  pulverised 
by  Hoche  as  soon  as  it  landed." — Lord  Rosebery's  Pitt,  p.  131.  Or  was 
Laudor  thinking  of  Sir  E.  Pellew's  attack  on  Quiberon  Bay,  June  4, 
1800,  when  some  French  batteries  were  destroyed  but  we  could  not 
reduce  Fort  Penthievre  .■* 

'  A  British  force  under  General  Sir  James  Murray  Pulteney  was  sent 
against  Ferrol  in  August,  1800.  The  troops  landed,  but  Pulteney 
thought  the  place  too  strong  to  be  taken  except  by  regular  siege,  and 
re-embarked  them.  The  naval  officers  thought  the  place  might  easily 
have  been  captured.  See  Landor's  Imaginary  Conversations.  "  Neither 
the  general  nor  any  person  under  him  knew  its  fortifications  or  its 
garrison.  They  saw  the  walls  and  turned  back,  although  the  walls 
on  the  side  where  they  landed  were  incapable  of  sustaining  one 
discharge  of  artillery,  and  the  garrison  consisted  of  half  a  regiment.' 
■^  Works,  vi.  24, 


WALCHEREN    DISASTERS  21 

to  interrogate.  When  calamities  come  down  so 
thick  together ;  when  merely  the  vile  instrument 
is  broken  and  cast  off,  not  the  workman  dismissed 
for  choosing  and  employing  it ;  when  a  general 
is  rewarded  by  appointing  him  minister  of 
war,^  for  no  other  services  than  flying  from  an 
invalid  garrison  and  dismantled  fortress,  what 
hope  is  there  of  any  thing  prosperous,  until 
the  elements  of  a  state  produce  a  change  of 
season  ?  I  am  afraid  it  is  only  by  severe  and 
stormy  weather  that  such  a  pestilence  can  be 
stopped. 

One  party  can  accuse  the  other  with  equal 
justice.  Such  being  the  case,  no  culprit  of  rank 
and  connections,  no  officer  so  high  that  his 
criminality  can  involve  our  safety  and  our  honour, 
will  be  punished  by  any  thing  more  severe  than 
verbal  censure.  Really  it  is  ridiculous  to  talk  of 
disgracing,  for  instance,  a  man  ^  who  has  had  the 
baseness  to  praise  a  naval  officer  to  the  people 
and  to  malign  him  to  the  sovereign ;  whose  folly 
and  that  of  his  defenders  is  so  signal  that  nothing 
but  the  hand  of  Providence  could  have  stamped 

*  Sir  James  Murray  Pulteney  became  Secretary  at  War  in  1807. 

*  A  reference  to  General  Lord  Chatham,  who  commanded  the  troops 
in  the  ill-fated  expedition  to  Walcheren,  1809.  On  February  14, 
1810,  Lord  Chatham  "  delivered  clandestinely  to  the  King  a  paper 
justifying  himself  and  in  some  degree  inculpating  the  Navy  and  even 
the  Admiralty." — Lord  Holland's  Further  Memoirs  of  the  Whig  Party, 
p.  33.  The  matter  was  referred  to  in  the  House  of  Lords  five  days 
later.  Landor's  verses  on  Walcherea  will  be  found  in  his  Workt, 
viii.  43. 


22  PREFACE 

it,  nothing  but  the  power  of  divine  indignation 
and  justice  could  have  driven  them  to  the  ex- 
posure of  his  documents.  If  any  such  person  is 
known  to  exist  at  this  moment,  and  not  to  be 
out  of  favour,  where  favour  is,  or  ought  to  be, 
a  reward  for  active  and  transcendent  virtues,  I 
need  make  no  apology  for  the  force  of  my  ex- 
pressions. No  name  is  mentioned  ;  T  disclaim  all 
reference,  all  allusion.  If  the  stigma  flies  forth 
against  any,  it  must  be  by  its  own  peculiar 
aptitude  and  attraction.  According  to  the  reports 
which  are  prevalent,  and  which  I  would  rather 
refute  than  repeat,  the  quarters  of  a  brave  and 
active  officer  were  taken  from  him,  he  was  cast 
out  to  die  amongst  the  pestilential  marshes,  that 
the  state  turtles  of  this  glutton  might  have  a 
commodious  kitchen  !  He  was  not  to  be  disturbed, 
or  spoken  to,  or  called  on,  until  several  hours 
after  noon ;  he  was  not  to  be  seen  while  he  was 
dressing ;  he  was  not  to  be  intruded  on  at  his 
breakfast ;  he  was  not  to  be  molested  at  his 
dinner ;  he  was  not  to  be  hurried  at  his  wine ; 
he  was  not  to  be  awakened  at  his  needful  and 
hardly  earned  repose.^ 

Commodus  and  Elagabalus  !     Ye  lived  amongst 

'  See  Landor's  Imaginary  Conversations :  "  0(  our  generals,  the 
most  distinguished  then  employed  was  a  body  that  rose  from  bed  after 
midday,  of  which  when  orders  were  requested,  the  first  answer  was. 
His  lordship  u  at  breakfast ;  the  second.  His  lordship  is  at  lunch ;  the 
third.  His  lordship  is  at  dinner." — Imag.  Conv.  1824,  i.  141.  This 
passage  was  afterwards  transferred  to  another  conversation,  when  the 


EXALTED   DELINQUENTS  23 

a  coarse,  reviling  people  !  Your  memories  have 
been  followed  up,  and  hooted  at,  most  inde- 
corously ;  we  are  taught  better  manners ;  we  see 
such  actions  as  yours,  and  hold  our  peace  !  But 
I  should  be  more  contented,  I  must  acknowledge 
it,  if  I  could  discover  in  history  where  any  people 
hath  been  so  fortunate  as  to  survive  such  delin- 
quency in  the  higher  officers  of  state  ;  if  I  could 
find  that  nation  in  existence  twenty  years  after 
such  politicians  and  such  polity.  This  idea  of 
degradation  and  ruin  stands  so  closely  and  so 
awfully  before  me,  I  lose  for  a  moment  all  view 
of  that  vast  colossus  ^  which  overshadows  the 
whole  continent  of  Europe,  and  which  will  never 
be  considered  as  the  cause,  however  he  may  be  the 
instrument,  of  our  subjugation.  If  we  had  only 
the  weakest  enemy,  in  addition  to  such  corruption 
at  home,  such  oppression  of  taxes  on  the  inter- 
mediate ranks,  such  proscription  of  talents  on 
the  one  side,  such  prostitution  on  the  other,  and 
such  utter  exclusion  of  all  dissidents  in  religion, 
when  the  national  church  is  in  a  deplorable 
minority,  our  ruin  would  be  equally  certain,  though 
somewhat  longer  delayed. 

last  answer  became,  "  His  lordship  is  dead  drunk  "  ( Works,  1876j  vi. 
248).  Lord  Holland  said  of  the  general :  ''  His  indolence  in  office 
had  .  .  .  become  so  notorious  that  he  was  nicknamed  in  the  navy  the 
late  Lord  Chatham." — Further  Memoirs,  p.  32. 

*  Landor  makes  Pitt  say  :  "  I  have  failed  in  every  thing  I  undertook, 
and  have  cast  in  solid  gold  the  clay  colossus  of  France." — Works,  iii. 
188. 


24  PREFACE 

With  what  contempt  have  we  often  spoken  of 
the  Turks !  ^  yet  the  counsels  of  this  people  seem 
to  be  more  systematic  than  ours,  amidst  all  their 
troubles  and  revolutions.  Their  defects  have  been 
fewer  and  less  calamitous,  and,  fanatics  and  mis- 
creants as  they  are,  their  toleration  has  been  less 
circumscribed  by  bigotry.  And  yet  the  nation 
whose  sacred  rights  they  think  it  necessary  to 
qualify,  is  open  to  the  descents  and  insinuations 
of  a  powerful  and  triumphant  enemy.  I^et  us  not 
deceive  ourselves,  and  fancy  we  are  rich,  and 
mighty,  and  unassailable,  because  we  can  still  raise 
money ;  our  methods  of  raising  money  are  certain 
signs  of  our  necessities,  and  the  power  of  raising  it 
is  no  proof  of  any  power  beyond.  Nations  have 
trampled  down  their  oppressors  without  coin  and 
without  credit.  Those  who  are  angry  that  this 
country,  in  which  there  are  such  splendid  dinners 
and  crowded  drawing-rooms,  should  be  compared 
with  Turkey,  must  be  reminded  that  pleasure  and 
wit  are  but  fallacious  symbols  of  eternity  to  a  state. 

The  guests  of  Pompey,  in  his  rich  pavilion  at 
Pharsalia,  looked  down  with  disdain  on  Caesar  the 
last  evening  of  their  lives.  But  posterity  is  just, 
even   among  the   most  vulgar  and  illiterate.     A 

*  ''  The  only  people  of  whom  he  [Landor]  writes  with  constant  respect 
are  the  Turks  :  '  coming  from  Turkey  to  France  was  like  passing  from 
lions  to  lap-dogs  :  they  alone  of  all  nations  have  known  how  to 
manage  the  two  only  real  means  of  happiness,  energy  and  repose.'" — 
Lord  Houghton  in  Edinburgh  Review,  July,  1869,  p.  244. 


CiESAR,   POMPEY,   BONAPARTE    25 

little  dog  is  universally  called  Pompey ;  a  great 
dog,  Cassar.  We  despise  the  character  of  Pompey, 
in  despite  of  some  virtues ;  we  admire  the  charac- 
ter of  Caesar,  in  despite  of  many  vices.  Such  an 
effect  hath  superior  energy  on  the  soul  of  man. 
Nature  not  only  permits  us,  but  commands  us,  to 
reverence  it,  even  when  its  direction  is  sinister 
to  our  happiness.  It  is  not  from  the  traditionary 
verbiage  of  pedagogues,  who  hate  and  love,  despise 
and  admire,  by  prescription,  that  we  feel  animated 
at  the  achievements  of  heroes.  It  is  from  the 
intuitive  and  certain  knowledge  of  our  hearts,  that 
there  is  a  conservate  power  within  us,  against 
corruption  and  against  violence ;  and  that  nothing 
good  or  glorious  is  impossible  to  those  whose 
strength  and  spirit  are  bent  resolutely  on  the 
exploit.  Even  bad  men  are  viewed  differently 
from  other  bad  men,  by  a  force  of  mind.  In 
Bonaparte,  it  is  evident  that  anger  and  a  jealousy 
allied  to  fear,  are  the  predominant  passions ;  while 
the  fire-side  inmates  of  his  heart,  if  I  may  venture 
on  the  expression,  are  cruelty  and  fraud — sure  pro- 
geny of  such  parents.  No  vices  can  be  imagined 
more  hateful.  But  he  never  deserts  his  aUies,  he 
never  abandons  his  object ;  he  bestows  no  rewards 
on  the  idle,  he  shelters  no  coward  from  punish- 
ment. If  he  is  censurable,  it  is  in  the  opposite 
extreme :  not  only  does  he  raise  up  merit  whenever 
he  discovers  it,  but  with  a  spirit  which  might  be 

4 


26     .  PREFACE 

called  enthusiasm,  if  so  revolutionary  a  conduct  can 
be  spoken  of  so  equivocally,  he  values  it  quite  as 
highly  in  the  living  as  in  the  remotest  of  their 
ancestors.  By  these  means  he  has  established  his 
own  empire,  and  subverted  others,  which  he  never 
could  have  done  had  his  competitors  adopted  the 
same.  By  the  providence  of  God  we  have  avoided 
one  vast  mischief:  we  have  not  much  extended 
our  dominions.  To  pave  the  road  to  conquests, 
and  to  erect  the  outworks  necessary  for  retaining 
them,  would  consume  almost  all  that  is  left  to 
us  from  the  fragments  of  the  constitution. 

Although  there  may  be  some  people  so  ignorant 
and  stupid  as  to  believe  that  every  act  of  coercion 
is  a  proof  of  energy,  and  every  enforcement  of  an 
obsolete  law  a  preservative  of  the  rest,  even  those 
men  must  be  aware,  from  their  own  personal 
feelings,  that  the  less  we  expose  of  what  is  vulner- 
able, the  more  is  our  bosom  at  peace.  The  Romans, 
the  Macedonians,  and  the  French  sunk  under 
despotism  by  their  conquests ;  and  he  who  added 
most  to  the  dominions  of  each  country  added  most 
to  its  subjugation.  Every  free  people,  if  it  is  wise 
and  powerful,  will  deprecate  an  accession  of  terri- 
tory. In  a  state  of  successful  war  the  prince 
acquires  new  powers,  bestows  new  offices,  con- 
ciliates new  interests.  Those  who  were  under  him 
jfrom  their  early  days  waste  away  in  freedom  as  he 
ascends  in  glory;  but  in  a  nation  whose  laws  are 


FRENCH   HARPIES  27 

unequal,  each  individual  is  relieved  a  little  in 
proportion  as  the  dominions  of  the  state  extend. 
Hence  a  tyrant  becomes  more  popular  for  war, 
although  its  expenditure,  even  when  successful, 
adds  other  privations  to  those  of  liberty.  The 
French  lately  were  free,  as  much  as  any  people 
so  light  and  ignorant  can  ever  be.  Two  men  of 
transcendent  abilities,  Cambacer^s  and  Talleyrand, 
men  unrestrained  by  any  sense  of  religion  or  any 
principle  of  morality,  have  instructed  a  soldier 
of  fortune  how  to  govern  and  keep  that  people 
in  subjection.  Under  his  vast  encampment — such 
is  France — these  harpies  devour  the  prey  they  have 
collected,  with  incessant  clamours  against  English- 
men, as  foreigners  who  have  rashly  drawn  the 
sword,  and  invaded  them  during  the  festival  of 
the  Continent.  To  become  the  companions  of  a 
conqueror  is  enough  to  remove  the  disgrace  of 
subjugation.  Whether  this  be  the  opinion  of 
philosophers  I  cannot  tell,  nor  whether  it  be  a 
point  of  speculation  with  those  who  deprecate  any 
violence  of  speech,  or  action,  against  the  emperor. 
I  believe  that,  mingled  with  fear  and  treachery,  it 
finds  a  place  even  there ;  but  certain  I  am  that 
it  is  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  those  who  have 
overturned  old  empires  and  established  new ;  that 
it  is  the  universal  maxim  of  ardent  minds,  and  the 
military  creed  of  revolutionary  Europe.  Woe  be- 
tide the  government  that  forces  men  to  deliberate 


28  PREFACE 

whether  it  be  the  more  disgraceful  to  admit  a 
new  dynasty,  with  economy  and  peace,  or  to 
support  an  old  establishment  in  irremediable  cor- 
ruption and  in  hopeless  war.  If  ever  the  time 
should  arrive  when  the  EngHsh  must  pay  heavier 
taxes,  without  attaining  any  proposed  object, 
than  that  object,  if  attained,  would  be  worth ; 
if  nineteen  in  twenty  should  be  so  reduced 
in  circumstances  that  they  cannot  give  their 
children  the  same  advantages  of  education  and 
of  business  as  they  themselves  enjoyed ;  it  will 
be  then  a  duty  to  remove,  by  every  effort  and 
at  every  peril,  the  causes,  whatsoever  they  may 
be,  of  so  serious  and  mournful  a  calamity.  It 
will  be  their  object  and  determination  to  render 
it  impossible  for  those  who  have  brought  about 
such  an  evil  to  compass  any  more,  or  even  to 
make  any  attempt,  however  peaceable,  for  the 
recovery  of  their  possessions.  Committees  will 
then  be  holden  to  decide  on  what  has  been 
merited  by  public  services,  and  to  receive  back 
again  what  has  been  taken  under  false  pretences. 
A  people  conscious  of  its  strength  and  dignity 
will  always  be  generous  and  mild :  even  the 
French  were  not  very  ferocious,  until  they  were 
scourged  and  maddened  by  their  wars.  The  idea 
of  vengeance  has  been  too  long  associated  with 
the  idea  of  retribution.  England  has  wanted  a 
Cromwell   and  a   Nassau ;    she  never  has  wanted 


WORDS   OF   BAD   OMEN  29 

a  Robespierre  or  a  Bonaparte.  On  the  other  hand, 
never,  since  the  extinction  of  the  Tudors,  has  she 
betrayed  so  much  indifference  to  pubHc  virtue,  or 
such  proneness  to  the  most  ignominious  of  all 
subjection.  The  case  proposed  by  Montesquieu  is 
no  longer  hypothetical :  the  if  ever  is  blotted  from 
the  problem. 

The  Cumaeans,  it  is  said,  had  not  the  common 
sense  to  know  that  they  possessed  the  right  of 
standing  under  their  own  porticos  when  it  rained ; 
but,  probably,  in  some  very  foul  weather,  they  took 
shelter  under  the  most  ample  and  most  protect- 
ing. Open  tyranny  is  not  the  greatest  of  all 
evils.  It  is  better  to  contend  against  any  thing, 
however  inhuman  and  monstrous  it  may  be, 
possessing  force,  however  great,  let  it  only  be 
visible  and  definite  in  every  limb  and  motion, 
than  to  be  drawn  under  in  the  fat  folds  of  some 
overwhelming  hydra,  and  to  be  sucked  away 
insensibly  at  its  leisure. 

We  have  been,  I  shall  not  say  at  what  period, 
in  a  situation  analogous  to  this,  and  yet  we  have 
addressed  one  another  in  high  language.  But 
words  of  encouragement,  too  often  repeated,  are 
words  of  bad  omen.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  lower 
the  spirit  or  to  damp  the  hopes  of  the  public.  I 
foretold,  but  it  was  in  private,  that  Fox  would 
be  aconite  where  Pitt  was  wormwood.  The 
disasters  of  the  country  began  with  this  heaven- 


80  PREFACE 

bom  minister;^  happy  were  England  had  they 
terminated  with  his  heroic  brother.  The  last  of 
these  Dioscuri,  by  appearing  on  his  war-horse  at 
the  gate,  gave  warning  to  the  wiser  that  the  house 
of  their  revels  was  about  to  fall.  We  have  been 
sitting  like  condemned  criminals :  the  poison  has 
now  deadened  all  the  extremities,  and  is  mounting 
to  the  heart.  Both  parties  have  inveighed  with 
equal  vehemence  against  the  inequality  and 
insufficiency  of  our  representative  system ;  both 
projected,  and  both  abandoned,  the  project  of 
reform.  No  person  mixes  in  general  society  so 
little  as  I  do  ;  no  man  has  kept  himself  so  totally 
detached  from  all  factions  ;  yet  I  seldom  meet  a 
person,  whether  on  business  or  amusement,  whether 
a  stranger  or  acquaintance,  whose  conversation  does 
not  immediately  turn  on  the  calamities  and  dis- 
graces we  have  suffered,  and  does  not  generally 
end  with  the  confession  of  an  equal  insufficiency, 
in  all  who  have  been  members  of  the  cabinet. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  French  revolution,  when 
the  minds  of  men  were  heated  by  the  rapidity 
and  importance   of  events,  and  when  friendships 


*  Mr.  Gladstone,  referring  to  the  designation  of  Pitt  as  the  "  heaven- 
born  minister,"  said  in  the  House  of  Commons  :  "  1  have  understood 
that  that  name  came  from  the  city  of  London  at  the  time  when  Pitt 
embarked  this  country  in  the  unhappy  policy  of  meeting  the  expenditure 
of  a  revolutionary  war,  even  from  the  first,  by  loan." 

According  to  Leigh  Hunt,  the  Duke  of  Chandos,  when  Master  of  the 
Horse,  first  applied  the  famous  epithet  to  Pitt,  "  which  occasioned  some 
raillery." — Leigh  Hunt's  Recollections  of  Byron,  etc.,  ii.  67. 


PORTENTS   OF   REVOLUTION       31 

were  torn  asunder  by  new  and  violent  attractions 
there  still  remained  a  delicacy  of  sentiment,  and 
a  reluctance  to  touch  that  train  which  was  liable 
to  such  tremendous  explosions.^  At  present  there 
is  one  common  cause,  and  one  universal  opinion. 
The  leading  men  have  been  tried.  The  glebe  is 
effete  ;  the  plough  and  harrow  must  go  deeper ; 
something  new  must  be  turned  up ;  but  on  the 
same  ground,  and  within  the  same  inclosures. 
We  want  fresh  seed,  and  weightier,  and  sounder. 

If  ever  there  was  a  time  when  a  revolution 
would  be  disastrous,  it  is  now ;  if  ever  there  was 
one  when  it  seemed  inevitable,  now  is  it.^  What 
are  the  signs  and  tokens  of  this  awful  visitation  ? 
Are  they  not  suspended  in  the  heavens,  glaringly 
visible,  at  the  present  hour  ?  Insolence  and  injus- 
tice, imposture  and  self-sufficiency  ;  a  prostration 
of  public  virtue,  an  eye  closed  against  inevitable 
misfortune,  an  ear  deaf  to  the  most  earnest 
prayers  of  those  who  could  profit  but  generally 
by  their  advice,  and  a  countenance  which  never 
changes  at  the  most  irrefragable  reproaches,  and 
the  most  deep  disgrace.     What  can  be  expected 

'  Landor,  in  one  of  his  letters,  says  that  Oebir  was  "  written  in  the 
last  century,  when  our  young  English  heads  were  turned  towards  the 
French  Revolution,  and  were  deluded  by  a  phantom  of  Liberty,  as  if  the 
French  could  ever  be  free,  or  let  others  be." — Landor's  Letters,  etc., 
1897,  p.  135. 

'  "This  country,"  so  wrote  Southey,  May  14,  1812,  ''is  upon  the 
brink  of  the  most  dreadful  of  all  conceivable  states — an  insurrection  of 
the  poor  against  the  rich." — L\fe  of  Southey,  p.  282. 


82  PREFACE 

from  men  who  study  not  to  be  upright  and 
diligent  in  their  offices,  but  merely  con  over 
some  petty  cavil  at  their  predecessors,  and  stoop 
to  ascertain,  that  they  may  reach,  without  ex- 
ceeding, the  Hmits  of  tJieir  iniquity?  Is  there 
any  one  who  has  not  been  disgusted,  and  who 
would  not  have  been  indignant  formerly,  when 
the  higher  and  more  manly  feehngs  had  all  their 
painful  play,  at  the  recriminations  of  the  opposite 
ministers  ?  Virtue  and  truth  lose  their  character- 
istic loveliness  when  the  veil  is  ript  away  by 
such  hands.  When  a  Canning  or  a  Castlereagh 
tells  us,  with  abhorrence,  of  a  reversion  or  a 
sinecure  given  to  some  abandoned  gambler,  by 
the  patron  of  his  club,  we  are  indeed  indignant, 
but  not  to  our  natural  pitch :  the  sentiment  flies 
off  in  splinters,  some  on  the  giver,  some  on 
the  receiver,  most  on  the  accuser.  We  have 
heard  of  family  and  of  birth  in  parliament ;  but, 
if  a  nation  is  ruined,  of  what  importance  is  it 
whether  it  be  ruined  by  a  man  of  yesterday  or 
by  a  man  of  the  day  before  ?  The  difference 
is  no  greater,  to  those  who  survey  the  newest, 
and  the  most  ancient,  at  an  equal  elevation  above 
both. 

To  saunter  with  complacency,  or  with  indiffer- 
ence, by  the  channels  of  corruption,  is  not  virtue. 
It  is  only  the  Asiatic  despot  who  is  never  to  be 
awakened   from   his    slumber,  when   treachery  is 


CORRUPT   GOVERNMENT  33 

lurking  in  his  courts,  and  enemies  are  thundering 
at  his  gates.  Such  images  were  poetry  and  fable 
to  our  ancestors :  no  phantasmagoria  could  bring 
them  to  their  bosoms.  Yet  virtuous  men  are 
inert  and  passive  now.  Speak  to  them  of  cor- 
ruption, they  do  not  blush  to  tell  you  it  is 
necessary ;  government  could  not  go  on  without 
it ;  we  are  not  what  we  were ;  should  we  not 
ourselves  like  a  place  ?  "  Yes,"  1  answer,  "  and 
the  time  is  approaching  when  every  man  will 
have  his  own ;  but  I  would  conjure  you  to 
withhold  from  me,  and  from  all  whom  I  deem 
estimable,  the  sure  means  of  becoming  worse  men." 
I  consider  the  amalgam  of  rottenness  and 
soundness  as  a  much  greater  curse  than  all  the 
poverty  and  distress  arising  from  ministerial 
profusion.  There  is  infinitely  more  misery  in  the 
world  from  wickedness  than  from  want ;  but  they 
are  two  gamesters  that  play  into  each  other's 
hand.  If  the  higher  classes  hold  out  a  glaring 
example  of  rapacity,  they  will  meet  either  with 
vengeance  or  with  imitation  from  those  who  walk 
below.  Whichever  may  happen,  the  country  is 
the  sufferer.  We  have  contemplated  such  enor- 
mities of  crime   and   such   anomahes  of  law  ^  as 


'  A8  late  as  1823  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  in  moving  a  resolution  on 
the  ''  barbarous  criminal  laws,"  said :  "  We  had  two  hundred  laws 
inflicting  capital  punishment  in  our  Statute-book,  and  yet  never  acted 
on  more  than  twenty  of  them."  See  also  Landor's  imaginary  con- 
versation between  the  Grand  Duke  Leopold  and  President  Du  Paty 

5 


84  PREFACE 

never  were  seen  before  in  any  land  where  the 
images  of  liberty  and  justice,  or  even  the  naked 
walls  of  a  constitution,  were  left  standing.  If  an 
unfortunate  mother,  at  a  distance  from  home, 
carrying  with  her  a  half-starved  infant,  along 
roads  covered  with  snow,  should  snatch  a  shirt 
from  a  hedge  to  protect  it  from  a  miserable  death, 
she  is  condemned  to  die.  That  she  never  could 
have  known  the  law,  that  she  never  could  have 
assented  to  its  equity,  avails  her  nothing ;  that 
she  was  pierced  by  the  cries  of  her  own  offspring  ; 
that  it  was  not  merely  the  instigation  of  want, 
but  the  force  of  omnipotent  nature,  the  very  voice 
of  God  himself,  the  preservation  of  a  human 
being,  of  her  own,  the  cause  of  her  wandering, 
and  her  wretchedness,  of  her  captivity  and  her 
chains :  what  are  these  in  opposition  to  an  act 
of  parhament  ?  She  dies.  Look  on  the  other  side. 
A  nobleman  of  most  acute  judgment,^  well  versed 
in  all  the  usages  of  his  country,  rich,  powerful, 

{Works,  iii.  51).  In  another  conversation  he  makes  Sir  Samuel 
Romilly  say  :  "  I  am  ready  to  believe  that  Draco  himself  did  not 
punish  so  many  [oiFences]  with  blood  as  we  do,  though  he  punished 
with  blood  every  one  indiscriminately." — Works,  iii.  163. 

'  Henry  Dundas,  Lord  Melville,  for  a  long  time  Lord  Privy  Seal  for 
Scotland  and  President  of  the  Board  of  Control  for  India.  In  1785 
he  had  carried  a  Bill  to  prevent  the  Treasurer  of  the  Navy  appropriating 
public  moneys  to  his  private  use,  and  in  1806  he  was  himself  impeached, 
but  acquitted,  on  a  charge  of  misappropriation.  Landor  attacked  him 
both  in  prose  and  verse.  In  the  Apology  for  Satire  {Poems,  1795)  he 
says  : 

"  Invidious  gods  !    Why  boasts  the  brave  Dundas 
A  heart  of  iron  and  a  face  of  brass  }  " 

See  also  the  epigram  in  Lander's  Works,  viii.  124. 


LORD   MELVILLE  85 

commanding,   with    a    sway   more    absolute    and 
unresisted  than  any  of  its  ancient  monarchs,  the 
whole  kingdom  in  which  he  was  a  subject,  with 
all  its  boroughs,  and  its  shires,  and  its  courts,  and 
its  universities,  and,  in  addition,  as  merely  a  fief,  the 
empire  of  all  India ;  who  possessed  more  lucrative 
patronage  than  all  the  crowned  heads  in  Europe. 
Let  this  illustrious  character,  to  whom  so  many 
men  of  rank   looked  up   as   their  protector,  and 
whom   senators    and   statesmen   acknowledged   as 
their  guide ;  let  this  distinguished  member  of  the 
British   parhament    break    suddenly   through   the 
law  which  he  himself  had  brought  into  the  House 
for    the    conservation  of    our    property,   without 
necessity,  without  urgency,  without  temptation — 
and    behold   the   consequence.      True,   he  is   im- 
peached, but  all  the  evidence  of  his  guilt  he   is 
permitted   to   withhold,  by  a   special   decision  in 
his  favour,  and  the   answers  he  returns  to  those 
who  are  authorised  to  examine  him  are   evasive 
and  jocose.     One  honest  man.  Admiral  Nichols,^ 
Controller  of  the  Navy,  scandalised  at  such  scenes 
of  iniquity,  hopeless  of  reforming  them,  and  dis- 
daining to  sanction  by  his  name  and  presence  the 
beUef  that  a  single  act  of  fraud   and  peculation 

'  Landor  refers  elsewhere  to  the  conduct  of  Admiral  Nichols : 
"  Finding  no  support,  he  threw  up  his  office  as  Controller  of  the 
Navy,  and  never  afterwards  entered  the  House  of  Commons." — Works, 
iv.  429.  In  the  same  conversation  the  Admiral  is  described  as  "  a 
just,  a  valiant,  and  a  memorable  man  "  (lb.  p.  427). 


36  PREFACE 

had  been  examined  as  it  should  be,  threw  up 
his  office  instantaneously  and  retired  from  such 
unworthy  associates. 

He  resigned  his  place  for  no  other  reason 
than  because  he  was  most  fit  for  it,  and  for  the 
same  reason  I  have  often  wondered  how  he  ever 
came  to  occupy  it.  Men  are  in  governments 
what  words  are  in  eloquence  ;  their  position,  their 
relation,  and  their  intrinsic  qualities  must  be 
considered.  He  who,  with  a  fair-flowing  wig, 
might  appear  a  respectable  special  pleader,^  may 
be  incapable  of  coping  with  the  impetuous  and 
versatile  Bonaparte ;  he  who  understands  the 
merit  of  a  turtle  and  the  duties  of  a  toast-master 
may  be  unsuccessful  in  his  attacks  both  on  his 
enemies  and  his  comrades ;  those  who  write  in- 
genious and  sharp  satires  may  hope  to  arrive  at 
the  glory  of  pretty  smart  duellists,  may  even  be 

'  The  wearer  of  the  "  fair  flowing  wig "  was  Spencer  Perceval ; 
the  expert  in  turtles,  General  Lord  Chatham  ;  the  writer  of  sharp 
satires  and  promising  duellist^  Canning.  See  Sydney  Smith,  in  Peter 
Plymley  :  "You  tell  me  I  am  a  party  man.  I  hope  I  shall  always  be  so 
when  I  see  my  country  in  the  hands  of  a  pert  London  joker  [Canning] 
and  a  second-rate  lawyer  [Perceval].  Of  the  first,  no  other  good  is 
known  than  that  he  makes  pretty  Latin  verses  ;  the  second  seems  to 
me  to  have  the  head  of  a  country  parson  and  the  tongue  of  an  Old 
Bailey  lawyer." — S.  Smith's  Works,  1850,  p.  491. 

Landor,  who  disliked  Canning,  refers  to  his  ignorance  of  French  and 
to  his  duel  with  Castlereagh  in  the  verses  beginning  : 
*' Canning,  in  English  and  in  Latin  strong. 
Was  quite  an  infant  in  each  other  tongue. 
Proud,  yet  an  easy  embassy  he  sought 
From  the  kind  comrade  he  traduced  and  fought." 

Dry  Sticks,  p.  147. 


LESSONS   OF   HISTORY  87 

taught  dancing  and  french,  however  late ;  but 
they  have  yet  to  be  informed  that  the  arrangement 
of  a  campaign  is  different  from  the  construction 
of  a  pentameter. 

I  never  shall  think  it  presumptuous  to  offer 
such  advice  and  such  warning  as  men  of  reflection 
are  able  to  derive,  and  authorised  to  deliver,  from 
the  experience  of  past  ages.  Those  who  are 
ignorant  whence  arises  the  utility  of  history 
cannot  be  supposed  to  be  perfectly  well  informed 
whence  arises  the  pleasure  it  bestows.  Believe 
me,  it  is  not  a  series  of  sieges  and  battles,  of 
dangers  and  escapes,  of  turns  and  reverses  of 
fortune,  by  which  we  are  delighted  :  it  is  because 
for  the  moment  we  fancy  we  have  acquired  so 
much  wisdom  as  would  direct  us  in  similar 
situations  ;  it  is  a  consciousness  of  knowledge  and 
a  confidence  of  security.  The  mind  is  captivated 
by  these  impressions,  and  proceeds  without  further 
inquiry.  No  two  human  beings  ever  profited  less 
by  them  than  Mr.  Pitt  and  Mr.  Fox. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  war,  the  minister  had 
two  objects :  to  preserve  the  balance  of  Europe, 
and  to  maintain  the  constitution  of  the  realm. 
The  idea  of  the  balance  of  Europe  was  taken  from 
the  states  of  Italy,  but  it  is  proper  and  requisite 
to  have  a  correct  notion  how  it  was  managed. 
"  Questi  potentati  avenano  ad  avere  due  cure  prin- 
cipali :   I'una,   che  un  forestiero   non  entrasse  in 


88  PREFACE 

Italia  con  armi ;  I'altra  che  nessuno  di  loro  occupasse 
piu  stato."^     Such  are  the  words   of  Machiavelli. 
At  the  commencement  of  the  French  revolution, 
all  the  more  extensive  states  of  Europe  seemed 
ready  to  resolve  themselves  into  their  component 
parts.     The  conjunctures  of  this  period  seemed  to 
portend  that  what  we  had  been  waging  so  many 
wars  to  bring  about  would  be  accomplished  by  its 
own  conflicting  elements.     The  conceptions  of  the 
great  disposer  were   swelling  into   full  maturity. 
The  minister  of  the   day  laboured   himself  into 
bhndness  ^  by  striving  to  undo  what  he  would,  if 
he  could   have   seen  one  inch   before  him,   have 
considered  his  highest  glory,   and  his  most  per- 
manent blessing,  to  have  achieved.     The  spirit  of 
liberty   was    abroad,    and    the    sound    of   it    was 
tremendous  when   it  flashed  into  those  quarters 
where  there  was  none.     If  Mr.  Pitt  found  it  or 
made  it  requisite  to  coerce  the  new  opinions,  it  was 
his  policy  to  keep  a  formidable  force  within  the 
realm,  surely  not  to  send  it  out.     It  would  also 
have  been  in  readiness,  and  without  exciting  any 
previous  suspicion,  to  take  advantage  of  whatever 
calamity  might  befaU  the  infant  republic.     Pur- 

^  Machiavelli,  //  Principe,  cap.  xi.  Elsewhere  Landor  gives  the 
English  :  "  Machiavelli,  in  speaking  of  the  Italian  league  says,  '  These 
potentates  had  two  principal  views  :  one  that  no  foreigner  should  enter 
Italy  in  arms ;  the  other,  that  none  of  the  princes  or  states  should 
attempt  an  increase  of  territory.' " — Letters  to  Lord  Liverpool,  p.  64. 

'  Landor  may  be  referring  to  Lord  North,  whose  sight,  however, 
began  to  fail  in  1787,  and  who  soon  afterwards  became  totally  blind. 


BALANCE   OF   POWER  39 

suing  quite  a  different  plan,  he  succeeded  in 
nothing  but  in  preventing  the  demoKtion  of  the 
French  monarchy,  which,  under  another  and  more 
formidable  dynasty,  has  swallowed  up  all  the  rest. 
The  balance  of  Europe  would  have  been  settled 
to  the  full  satisfaction  of  its  most  romantic  admirers 
if  we  never  had  entered  into  a  continental  war,  for 
it  is  certain  that  the  Netherlands  would  have  thrown 
off  the  yoke  both  of  Austria  and  of  France.  This 
one  event  would  have  preserved  the  balance ;  no 
other  could.  But  a  court  war  was  necessary  to 
create  that  danger  in  the  midst  of  which  all 
clamours  for  reform  were  to  be  stifled.  A  sense 
of  common  danger  united  all  parties  in  France, 
who  now  began  to  see  clearly  that  the  dismember- 
ment of  their  country  was  intended.  Valenciennes^ 
was  taken  in  the  name  of  the  emperor  of  Germany, 
and  the  West  Indian  islands  ^  were  surrendered  to 

*  After  a  siege  lasting  nearly  four  weeks,  the  Duke  of  York,  on 
July  26,  1793,  took  possession  of  Valenciennes  on  behalf,  not  of  the 
French  royal  family,  but  of  the  Emperor.  See  Fox's  speech  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  March  24,  1795  :  "  When  we  took  Valenciennes, 
instead  of  taking  it  for  Louis  XVII.,  we  took  possession  of  it  in  the 
name  of  the  Emperor  Francis.  When  Conde  surrendered,  we  did  the 
same  thing.  .  .  .  Was  it  possible  for  any  man  to  be  so  ignorant  as  to 
doubt  what  our  intentions  were .''  How,  then,  was  it  possible  to  suppose 
that  our  conduct  would  produce  on  the  inhabitants  of  France  an  effect 
different  from  what  it  has  done .'' " 

'  Fox  said,  in  the  speech  quoted  in  the  last  note :  "  WTien  Sir 
Charles  Grey  and  Sir  John  Jervis  took  Martinique,  Guadaloupe,  and 
the  rest  of  the  French  West  India  islands,  did  they  take  possession  of 
them  for  Louis  XVII.  ?  No  !  but  for  the  King  of  Great  Britain,  not 
to  be  restored  to  France  when  monarchy  and  regular  government 
should  be  restored,  but  to  be  retained  as  conquests  if  the  chance  of 
war  should  leave  them  in  our  bauds." 


40  PREFACE 

the  king  of  Great  Britain.  The  principles  laid 
down  in  our  Bill  of  Rights  were  disclaimed  and 
reprobated,  and  it  was  understood  universally 
throughout  Europe  that  England  was  hostile  to 
every  people  which  might  assert  its  ancient  freedom. 
Sceptres  and  crowns  were  soon  trodden  into  the 
dust,  and  we  had  nothing  else  in  any  country  on 
our  side.  Hence  the  preponderating  power  con- 
tinued so,  in  our  despite  and  its  own.  The  present 
state  of  Europe  was  fixt  and  settled,  though 
ignorance  and  prejudice  concealed  it  from  our 
eyes,  at  the  moment  we  declared  hostihties.  At 
that  instant  the  Destinies  shook  over  Europe  the 
imperial  mantle,  and  held  up  the  iron  crown. 
Anarchy  might  have  split  France  into  fragments. 
We  warred  against  this  only  sure  ally,  and  estab- 
lished the  military  despotism  we  have  ever  since 
been  struggling  to  overthrow.  Not  a  movement 
of  ours  but  fixes  it  more  firmly ;  not  a  shilling 
we  expend  in  other  countries  but  goes  ultimately 
to  its  support.  If  our  mihtary  and  naval  forces 
were  appointed  to  exert  all  their  energies  in  con- 
junction it  might,  and  I  believe  it  would,  be 
otherwise. 

Let  us  now  look  at  home ;  let  us  look  at  the 
constitution ;  but,  first,  would  it  not  be  wiser  to 
look  jTo?'  it  ?  Surely  it  is  the  interest  of  the  present 
ministry  to  abandon  the  old  rotten  system.  They 
are   supported  by  the  people,   because  they  are 


THE   PERCEVAL   MINISTRY        41 

thought  more  honest  than  their  predecessors. 
They  are  also  more  intelligent,  more  vigilant,  more 
active.  How  little  is  wanting  to  estabhsh  their 
power  I  The  regent  sees  clearly  that  they  alone 
can  serve  him:  how  gladly  would  the  nation 
co-operate  in  confirming  this  favourable  impression  I 
No  administration  ever  had  such  general  support. 
It  needs  not  to  disburse  the  wages  of  iniquity : 
the  crutch  of  a  former  premier  may  be  the  cross  of 
Mr.  Perceval.  People  are  ready  to  pay  their  last 
farthing  for  the  war  against  Napoleon ;  but  if  they 
see  it  granted  in  pensions  and  sinecures,  they  will 
reserve  their  arms,  at  least,  for  a  vengeance  more 
practicable  and  more  deep.  What  the  constitution 
now  is  may  be  doubtful ;  but  every  man  pretends 
he  can  tell  you  what  is  injustice,  what  is  oppression, 
what  is  peculation,  what  is  defeat,  what  is  indigence, 
what  are  inquisitorial  taxes,  and  discretionary 
power.  Many  of  these  expressions  would  indeed 
have  puzzled  his  father,  but  education  of  late  years 
has  been  prodigiously  improved.  It  requires  a 
longer  and  more  profound  study  to  read,  mark, 
learn,  and  inwardly  digest^  the  voluminous  folios  of 
our  late  assessments,  under  the  assiduous  tutorage 
of  the  most  acute  tax-gatherer,  than  was  required 
not  long  ago  to  obtain  all  the  degrees  of  an 
university. 

I    do,   from    my   heart,   wish    and    desire    the 
permanence  of  the  present  ministry,  but  it  is  only 

6 


42  PREFACE 

by  justice  that  it  can  be  permanent.  If  the  clue  of 
those  measures  which  they  are  now  pursuing  in 
Ireland  were  traced  to  its  utmost  extent,  it  would 
lead  us  through  a  labyrinth  of  defilement  so  dark 
and  horrible  that,  even  with  broad  daylight  before 
us,  we  should  almost  doubt  the  practicabihty  of 
escape.  Of  what  consequence  is  it  to  us  if  the 
Irish  choose  to  worship  a  cow  or  a  potatoe  ?  Is 
there  any  danger  that  the  purity  of  our  religion 
should  be  contaminated  by  it,  or  that  the  purity  of 
our  parliament  should  be  suUied  by  their  admission  ? 
If  all  the  members  returned  were  Catholics,  still 
what  harm  could  they  do  ?  But  the  supposition  is 
quite  gratuitous,  for  it  is  certain  that  many,  and 
probable  that  the  greater  part,  would  be  protestants. 
What  we  hear  of  their  discontent  and  turbulence  is 
fundamentally  true,  but  much  exaggerated.  Their 
writers  are  not  remarkable  for  sobriety  of  discus- 
sion, and  they  consider  the  av^r)(ri<s  as  the  principal 
embellishment  of  style.  We  may  attribute  some- 
thing to  bad  humour,  and  something  to  bad  taste. 
A  history  of  the  present  times  should  not  be  written 
in  that  country.  Where  indeed  should  it  ?  This 
is  not  the  period,  nor  is  this  the  world,  where 
genius  can  exist  without  passion  and  without 
sympathy. 


COMMENTAEY  ON  "  MEMOIES 
OF  ME.  FOX" 

CHAPTER  I 

A    GEORGIAN    STATESMAN 

Fox  and  his  time — Corruption  in  Parliament — Pitt  and  the  peerage — 
George  III.  and  dukedoms — Fox's  History  of  James  II. — Dryden's 
prose  and  verse — Heroic  poetry — Pope's  invention — Fox  as  a  letter- 
writer — Place-hunters — Three  in  a  bed — Coalition  ministries — 
Fox's  French  proclivities — Only  right  when  Pitt  wrong. 

["  I  KNEW  Mr.  Fox,  however,  at  a  period  when 
his  glories  began  to  brighten — when  a  philosophical 
and  noble  determination  had,  for  a  considerable 
time,  induced  him  to  renounce  the  captivating 
allurements  and  amusements  of  fashionable  life — 
and  when,  resigning  himself  to  rural  pleasures, 
domestic  retirement,  and  literary  pursuits,  he 
became  a  new  man,  or  rather,  more  justly  may 
I  say,  he  returned  to  the  solid  enjoyment  of  a 
tranquil,  yet  refined,  rural  life,  from  which  he 
had  been  awhile  withdrawn,  but  had  never  been 
ahenated." — Trotter's  Memoirs^  preface,  viii.] 

Page  viii. — "  At  a  period  when  his  glories  began 
to  brighten."  It  was  rather  late  in  hfe  for  the 
glories  of  a  politician  to  begin  to  brighten. 

Page  ix. — "  It  must  be  granted,  too,  that  a 
commercial  and  luxurious  nation,  however  great, 


44         A   GEORGIAN   STATESMAN 

is  less  favourable  to  the  production  of  so  extra- 
ordinary a  character  as  that  of  Mr.  Fox,  than  one 
in  which  simplicity  and  disinterestedness  would  be 
the  prevailing  features."^ 

Mr.  Fox  bore  about  him,  until  he  advanced  in 
years,  all  the  characteristics  of  an  age  the  most 
corrupt  and  profligate.  One  of  simplicity  and 
disinterestedness  is  not  perhaps  that  in  which  a 
truly  great  man  shines  most  conspicuously.  Cato 
and  Brutus,  who  were  more  disinterested  characters, 
though  not  greater  than  Csesar,  lived  in  an  age  of 
impurity  and  corruption.^  Hampden,  Hutchinson, 
Ludlow,  Algernon  Sydney,  Milton,  lived  in  the 
most  disgraceful  days  of  England.  They  are,  like 
the  lightning  of  heaven,  more  visible  and  awful 
through  the  surrounding  darkness.  In  the  times 
of  the  Curii  and  Camilli,  Mr.  Fox  would  have  been 
a  prodigy  of  abomination.  In  those  of  Charles  II.  he 
would  have  appeared  one  of  the  brightest  and  best 
courtiers.  He  came  forward  into  life  with  every 
advantage,  and  the  age  was  neither  too  light  nor 
too  dark  a  background  for  the  clear  and  steady 
exhibition  of  his  features.     He  found  no  fault  in 

'  Trotter  adds  :  "  The  powerful  weiglit  of  mercantile  interests  in 
the  councils  of  the  English  people^  is  decidedly  adverse  to  the 
germination,  expansion,  and  glory  of  genius." 

*  Landor,  in  the  Pentameron,  makes  Petrarca  say :  "  We  are 
reluctant  to  admit  that  the  most  wretched  days  of  ancient  Rome 
were  the  days  of  her  most  illustrious  men  ;  that  they  began  amid  the 
triumphs  of  Scipio,  when  the  Gracchi  perished,  and  reached  the  worst 
under  the  dictatorship  of  Csesar,  when  perished  Liberty  herself." — 
Works,  iii.  494. 


THE   ENGLISH   NOBILITY  45 

the  luxuries  of  this  nation,  and  was  deeply  imbued 
with  that  portion  of  its  commercial  spirit  which 
exacts  no  industry,  and  pays  no  tax  —  the 
aristocratical  commerce  of  the  gaming-table. 

Page  xi. — "  [Demosthenes  had  the  great  advant- 
age of  speaking  to  a  large  and  independent  popular 
assembly.]  Fox  spoke  to  an  assembly  of  too 
aristocratic,  as  well  as  commercial,  a  cast,"  etc.  ^ 

The  qualities  are  opposite.  Both  could  not  p7'e- 
ponderate.  In  fact,  there  was  very  little  of  what 
suits  our  notions  of  aristocracy.  Brothers  and  sons 
of  noblemen  were  in  the  House  of  Commons,  but 
these  had  no  aristocratical  views  or  opinions.  They 
sat  and  rose  only  for  places  and  for  pensions  :  their 
very  seats  were  commercial.  It  is  only  an  ex- 
tremely small  part  of  the  English  nobility  itself 
that  can  be  called  the  aristocracy.  Pitt,  who 
despised,  or  perhaps  hated  it,  made  it  a  complete 
miscellany  of  fugitive  pieces.^     Whoever  chose  to 

'  ''To  expect,"  Trotter  adds,  ''the  same  effects  from  his  eloquence." 
*  Elsewhere  Landor  says  of  W.  Pitt:  "Jealous  of  power  and  distrustful 
of  the  people  that  raised  him  to  it,  he  enriches  and  attaches  to  him  the 
commercial  part  of  the  nation  by  the  most  wasteful  prodigality  both 
in  finance  and  war,  and  he  loosens  from  the  landed  the  chief  proprietors 
by  raising  them  to  the  peerage  " —  Works,  iv.  266.  See  also  the  con- 
versation between  Pitt  and  Canning,  where  Pitt  is  made  to  say  :  "  I  hate 
and  always  hated  these  [the  ancient  aristocracy].  I  do  not  mean  the 
rich :  they  served  me.  I  mean  the  old  houses  :  they  overshadowed 
me" — Works,  iii.  187.  Sheridan,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  about 
April,  1792,  said :  "  Sixty  or  seventy  peerages  had  been  created  under 
the  present  administration  [Pitt's]  for  no  distinguished  abilities,  for  no 
public  services,  but  merely  for  their  interest  in  returning  members  to 
Parliament." 


46         A  GEORGIAN   STATESMAN 

desert  the  cause  of  the  people  in  the  lower  house, 
was  cut  out  for  the  upper.  He  treated  the  lords 
as  Julius  Ceesar  treated  the  senate  at  Rome/  At 
last  the  King  thought  proper  to  keep  a  sort  of  side- 
chapel  for  a  sanctuary,  and  separated  the  ducal 
dignity  from  the  rest.^  In  honour  and  considera- 
tion it  was  no  longer  a  house  of  peers.  The 
people,  in  turning  the  new  ones  into  ridicule,  lost 
by  degrees  a  part  of  their  respect  for  the  more 
ancient ;  and  the  French  revolution  found  nothing 
but  their  reason,  a  feeble  barrier  among  the  vulgar, 
to  oppose.  All  their  salutary  prejudices  were  rooted 
out ;  the  more  acrimonious  were  left. 

Page  xii. — "  [Although  he  (Fox)  distinctly  saw 
the  ruin  preparing  by  a  rash  and  obstinate  minister 
(Pitt),  for  his  country,]  no  expression  of  bitter- 
ness ever  escaped  his  lips.  The  name  of  that 
minister,"  etc.  ^ 

No  more  than  against  his  opponents  at  cards. 
If  he  lost  to-night,  he  might  win  to-morrow. 

Page  xiv. — ["  Lord  Holland,  in  his  preface  to 
Mr.  Fox's   Historical   Fragment,*  has   dwelt  too 

*  ''Caesar  with  a  senate  at  his  heels." — Pope^  Essay  on  Man,  iv.  258. 

*  In  November,  1789,  Pitt  asked  for  a  dukedom  for  the  Marquis  of 
Buckingham.  "  The  King,  however,  refused.  He  had  no  objection 
to  create  marquises  and  earls,  but  he  had  determined  to  reserve  the 
rank  of  duke  for  the  royal  family." — Stanhope's  Pitt,  ii.  41. 

'  "  The  name,"  Trotter  says,  "  of  that  minister  (William  Pitt),  was 
rarely,  if  at  all,  noticed  by  him,  and  never  with  acrimony." 

*  A  History  of  the  Early  Part  of  the  lieign  of  James  the  Second,  by  the 
Right  Hon.  Charles  James  Fox,  London,  1808.     Lord  Holland,  who 


FOX  AS   AN  AUTHOR  47 

much  upon  his  uncle's  sohcitude  as  to  historical 
composition.  Mr.  Fox  doubtless  felt  anxious  to 
keep  it  distinct,  as  he  ought,  from  oratorical  de- 
livery ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  historic 
matter  flowed  from  him  as  his  despatches  did, 
with  facility  and  promptness.  His  manuscript  of 
the  Fragment,  of  which  a  good  part  is  in  his 
own  handwriting,  has  but  very  few  corrections  or 
alterations ;  and  his  great  anxiety  (and  very  justly) 
appears  to  me  to  have  regarded  facts,  rather  than 
style."] 

"Historical  Fragment,  etc."  What  shall  we 
think  of  a  man's  judgment,  who,  in  writing  a 
history,  had  resolved  to  employ  no  other  words 
than  a  poet  had  employed  in  his  verses,  prefaces, 
and  dedications?  Dryden,^  of  whom  I  speak,  has 
written  on  hardly  any  subject  but  poetry,  and  only 
a  part  of  his  writings  was  known  to  Mr.  Fox :  the 
rest  has  been  published  since,  and  is  of  little  value. 
Of  his  poems,  a  part  seems  to  have  been  composed 
in  a  brothel,  the  remainder  in  a  gin-shop.  His 
prose  is  vigorous  and  natural.  Those  who  call  him 
a  copious  writer  would  never  have  called  him  so 
had  he  not  been  a  careless  one.  In  fact,  he  uses 
any  word  that  comes  first.     He  had  engaged  with 

edited  the  volume,  says  of  his  uncle  :  "  Though  he  frequently  com- 
mended both  Hume  and  Blackstone's  style,  and  always  spoke  of 
Middleton's  with  admiration,  he  assured  me  that  he  would  admit 
no  word  into  his  book  for  which  he  had  not  the  authority  of  Dryden." 
Preface,  xl. 

'  Of  Dryden,  Landor  says,  elsewhere  :  "Alexander's  Feast  smells  of 
gin  at  second  hand,  with  true  Briton  fiddlers  full  of  native  talent  in  the 
orchestra." — Works,  iv.  602. 


48         A   GEORGIAN   STATESMAN 

a  bookseller  to  furnish  so  much  ;  ^  and  he  made  no 
effort  but  to  guard  against 

Immitis  rupta  tyranni 
Foedera.^ 

He  is  never  affected :  he  had  not  time  for  dress. 
There  is  no  obscurity,  no  redundancy ;  but  in  every 
composition,  in  poetry  or  prose,  a  strength  and 
spirit  purely  English,  neither  broken  by  labour 
nor  by  refinement.  Still,  he  is  not  what  Mr.  Fox  and 
others  have  called  him,  a  great  poet :  for  there  is  not 
throughout  his  works  one  stroke  of  the  sublime  or 
one  touch  of  the  pathetic,  which  are  the  only  true 
and  adequate  criteria;  nor  is  there  that  just  de- 
scription of  manners  in  his  dramas,  which  is  very 
important,  though  secondary.  For  these  reasons, 
he  will  never  be  considered  by  good  judges  as  equal 
to  Otway,  to  Chatterton,  to  Burns,  or  even  to 
Cowper.  He  was  at  repose,  and  free  from  all  those 
trifling  and  pretty  inventions  which  many  have 
considered  as  indications  and  proofs  of  the  truly 
poetical  mind.  There  is  a  species  of  these  which 
imposes  alike  on  the  undisciplined  and  scholastic. 
I  mean  the  invention,  or  rather,  the  modification 
of  machinery.  People  of  an  ordinary  cast  in  the 
republic  of  letters  grow  no  less  weary  at  hearing  of 
just  taste,  than  the  vulgar  in  Athens  were  at  hear- 

*  Dryden's  connection  with  Jacob  Tonsou  lasted  from  1769  till  his 
death.  Coleridge  talked  of  "  Dryden's  slovenly  verses  written  for  the 
trade." — H.  C.  Robinson's  Diary,  ii.  58. 

*  Virgil,  Georgics,  iv.  492. 


POPE   AND   DRYDEN  49 

ing  of  Aristides  the  just.  When  our  heroic  verse 
was  perfected,  as  it  was  by  Dryden,  and  others  had 
employed  it  with  success,  something  new  was 
demanded.  Poems  then  began  to  contain  as  much 
imagery  as  toy-shops  do,  and  about  as  valuable. 
The  Rape  of  the  Lock  was  admired,  not  for  its 
easy  and  light  touches  of  humour,  but  for  what  was 
called  the  invention  of  Pope,  his  application  of  the 
machinery.  It  was  not  perceived  nor  suspected, 
that  there  is  more  real  invention  in  the  Epistle  oj 
Eloise  to  Abelard,  although  so  much  is  copied 
from  the  original.  Warton^  was  unable  to  trace 
it  in  the  discovery,  the  arrangement,  the  concentra- 
tion of  what  is  scattered  by  passion,  in  the  poet's  fine 
tact  developing  that  idiosyncrasy  which  is  peculiar 
to  one  person  in  one  situation,  and  his  power  of 
enforcing  those  appeals  which  reach  in  a  moment 
every  heart  alike.  There  was  nothing  of  this  in 
Dryden,  nor  is  there  anything  which  could  be  very 
useful  to  Mr.  Fox.  He  certainly  left  behind  him 
no  treasury  of  expressions  which  contained  anything 
convertible  to  the  purposes  of  an  historian. 

^  Speaking  of  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  Dr.  Joseph  Warton  says  :  "  The 
insertion  of  the  machinery  of  the  sylphs  in  proper  places,  without  the 
least  appearance  of  its  being  awkwardly  stitched  in,  is  one  of  the 
happiest  effects  of  judgment  and  art." — Essay  on  the  Genius  and 
Writings  of  Pope,  3rd  ed.,  p.  225.  As  every  one  knows,  Addison 
had  discouraged  Pope  from  inserting  the  machinery  {lb.  p.  160). 

When  he  comes  to  the  Eloise  and  Abelard,  Warton  says  :  "  Pope  was 
a  most  excellent  improver,  if  no  great  original  inventor.  .  .  .  How 
finely  he  has  worked  up  the  hints  of  distress  that  are  scattered  up  and 
down  in  Abelard's  and  Eloisa's  Letters,  and  in  a  little  French  history 
of  their  lives  and  misfortunes." — Essay  on  Pope,  p.  S09. 

7 


50         A   GEORGIAN   STATESMAN 

Page  XV. — ["His  (Fox's)  letters  are  perfect  in 
their  kind,  more  agreeable — as  they  have  nothing 
of  his  egotism — than  those  of  Cicero,  and  more 
solid  than  those  of  Madame  de  Sevignd.  Those 
which  I  have  been  able  to  present  to  the  reader  are 
models  of  English  composition,  as  well  as  valuable 
depositories  of  the  critical  opinions  of  Mr.  Fox 
upon  the  most  excellent  authors  of  ancient  and 
modern  times."] 

"  His  letters,  etc."  Compare  them  with  Cicero's  I 
What !  are  we  as  much  interested  by  the  occur- 
rences and  opinions  in  these,  nearly  all  of  which 
are  intrinsically  of  small  moment,  as  by  the 
events  which  agitate  the  soul  of  Cicero  in  the 
most  important  era  of  the  Roman  common- 
wealth ?  Even  if  Mr.  Fox  had  said  anything 
about  the  great  characters  of  the  day,  could 
we  be  as  much  interested,  however  personally 
and  painfully  we  have  felt  from  them,  about 
the  actions  of  a  Pulteney  and  a  Whitelocke,  as 
we  are  by  those  of  Caesar  and  Cato,  of  Antony 
and  Brutus  ?  The  style  is  unimportant  in  both. 
Who  would  pick  out  a  solecism  from  the  con- 
flagration of  a  city,  or  listen  to  an  harmonious 
sentence  in  the  very  downfall  of  a  republic  ? 
The  history  of  Mr.  Fox  was  written  with  no 
carelessness,  most  certainly,  but  with  incorrect- 
ness, and,  I  think,  with  weakness.  His  reasonings 
are  ill-expressed  and  disorderly ;  his  deductions 
inconsequent,   his    expressions    neither    clear    nor 


t 


A  PATRIOT'S   GRIEF  51 

compact.  Cumberland,^  with  a  shrewdness  of 
criticism  which  he  never  showed  before,  pointed 
out  these  defects  in  his  review. 

Pages  xv.-xvii. — "  [His  Historical  Fragment  was 
written  under  the  disadvantage  of  his  frame 
of  mind  being  somewhat  affected  by  a  tinge  of 
melancholy.  .  .  .  Public  affairs  were  so  manifestly 
tending  to  a  crisis  when  he  wrote,  and  the 
minister  had  so  much  weakened  and  impaired  the 
constitution,  that  Mr.  Fox  could  not  but  grieve  — 
for  his  feelings  were  warm,  and  his  mind  of  a 
truly  patriotic  cast.  ...  In  having  recourse  to 
history,  still  continuing  his  exertions  in  favour 
of  liberty,  he  showed  the  generous  struggles  of 
a  noble  mind  to  serve  his  country  and  posterity 
in  the  only  way  left  open  to  him ;  and  if  a  shade 
of  melancholy  pervades  it,  the  source  from  which 
it  certainly  sprung  (for  he  was  easy  in  circum- 
stances, and  truly  happy  in  domestic  life)  is  the 
most  honourable  and  venerable  sentiment  which 
can  exist  in  the  human  breast] — grief  for  a 
wronged  and  unhappily  misguided  country." 

As  if  a  country  could  be  happily  misguided ! 
In  the  Dii  me  mali  perdant,  pejus  perdant,  etc., 
of  the  Romans,  there  was  an  idiomatic  intensity  : 
and  the  Greeks  had  a  similar  expression  of  their 
feelings.  We  in  these  countries  have  nothing 
like  it,  except  among  the  secretary's  countrymen — 
killed  dead.     Grief  for  a  wronged  country  I     And 

'  The  first  uumber  (February  1,  1809)^  of  The  London  Review,  which 
Richard  Cumberland  edited,  contains  an  article  by  him  on  Mr,  Fox's 
Reign  of  James  II. 


52         A  GEORGIAN   STATESMAN 

yet  this  grieving  patriot  outraged  the  whole  con- 
tinent of  South  America  ;  a  whole  people,  whose 
arms  and  hearts  were  open  to  us,  by  refusing 
them  the  appointment,  the  maintenance,  the 
security,  nay,  by  heaven,  the  mere  impunity  of 
their  own  civil  officers,  treating  them  worse  than 
the  most  atrocious  enemies  had  been  ever  treated, 
worse  than  any  conquered  colony  of  the  demo- 
cratic French,  under  the  rancorous  and  vindictive 
Pitt :  sending  tax-gatherers  of  all  descriptions 
into  their  country,  and  filling  up  every  place 
and  appointment  by  creatures  of  his  own,  ruined 
and  desperate  gamblers,  whose  rapine,  if  it  drove 
them  into  revolt,  would  at  least  have  broken  the 
sinews  of  retaliating  war. 

[Pages  xviii.-xix. — "  His  return  to  politics  .  .  . 
suspended  his  History.  The  words  of  the  noble 
editor  of  the  Fragment  are  very  remarkable, 
as  to  Mr.  Fox  foregoing  his  original  intention 
of  retiring  for  a  time  from  public  life.  'The 
remonstrances,  however,  of  those  friends,  for 
whose  judgment  he  had  the  greatest  deference, 
ultimately  prevailed.'  Here  is  proof,  from  the 
authority  of  Lord  Holland,  how  reluctant  Mr. 
Fox  was  to  abandon  his  intention.  I  know  that 
the  basis  of  his  determination  was  a  solid  and 
grand  one ;  that  occasionally  at  his  breakfast- 
table  we  had  a  httle  discussion  on  this  point ; 
and  that  Mrs.  Fox  and  myself  uniformly  joined 
in  recommending  retirement  until  the  people  felt 
properly  upon  public  affairs.     I   am  sorry  to  be 


POLITICAL   STAGE   TRICKS         53 

compelled  to  say,  that  the  friends  who  '  ultimately 
prevailed '  calculated  very  ill  upon  political 
matters,  and  did  not  sufficiently  estimate  the 
towering  and  grand  character  of  Mr.  Fox."] 

Page  xix. — "  Until  the  people  felt  properly 
upon  public  affairs."  He  should  have  lived,  then, 
until  now.  As  far  as  he  and  his  competitors  are 
concerned,  the  people  never  felt  more  correctly. 
No  more  of  staring  dupery  to  chattering  impostors, 
mounting  the  same  stage  and  exhibiting  the  same 
tricks,  after  hooting  them  off,  successively.  If  the 
people  feels  less  for  freedom  than  it  used  to  do, 
it  also  feels  less  for  faction.  It  has  lost  most  of 
its  money,  but  it  has  recovered  a  part  of  its  wits. 
We  must  allow  it  a  little  time  to  get  the  better 
of  its  shame,  and  it  will  be  the  same  manly  people 
it  was  before. 

Page  xix. — "  The  towering  and  manly  char- 
acter, etc."  ^ 

What  I  of  a  fellow  who  rephed  to  one  asking 
a  place  of  him,  "  We  lie  three  in  a  bed  already :  "  ^ 
who  was  instrumental  in  bringing  an  act  before 
Parliament,  and  in  procuring  it  to  be  passed,  to 

the  eternal  shame  and  infamy  of ,  which 

should  enable  Lord  Grenville  to  be  the  auditor 

'  See  last  extract.  Trotter  wrote  "  towering  and  grand  character." 
*  TAe  Courier  of  March  15,  1806,  said,  in  a  leading  article :  "  To 
use  a  pleasant  but  homely  phrase  of  the  new  ministerialists,  they  now 
lie  three  in  a  bed.  Tlie  Foxite,  and  the  Sidmouthite,  and  the 
Grenvilleite  now  pig  together,  head  and  front;  in  the  same  truckle 
bed." 


54         A  GEORGIAN  STATESMAN 

of  his  own  accounts  I  who  had  the  impudence 
to  say  that  Hanover  should  be  as  dear  to  Enghsh- 
men  as  Hampshire.^  Could  an  Englishman  say 
this  ?  Could  it  be  uttered  in  the  English 
language  ?  Could  it  be  inculcated,  could  it  be 
proposed,  could  it  be  suggested,  to  the  English 
people  ?  Louis,  and  James,  and  Barillon,  were 
in  their  graves.  What  man  succeeded  them  ? 
what  man  revived  their  projects  ?  Charles  James 
Fox  ;  the  historian  of  their  transactions,  who  had 
just  detected  and  exposed  and  reprobated  their 
crimes.  Shame  and  contempt  on  those,  who, 
knowing  these  facts,  profess  themselves  of  his 
party  and  call  themselves  after  his  name.  To 
what  extremities  will  not  faction  urge  them  I 
What  practical  Hes  will  they  not  commit !  He 
trod  under  foot  every  compact  with  his  con- 
stituents, every  promise,  every  oath,  solemnly 
made  before  the  people.  The  people  was  his 
sovereign,  but  was  Hanover  their  patrimony,  or 
their  country  ?  He  never  came  into  office  but 
through  a  breach  of  honour,  never  without  a 
close  and  intimate  coalition  with  men  whom  he 
had  frequently,  and  loudly,  and  justly,  denounced 
as  worthy  of  the  gallows.  So  atrocious  is  his 
guilt,  he  never  joined  them  but  at  the  very 
moment  when  their  criminality  was  at  the  highest ; 
and   when,   without  his    coalescence,    the    people 

*  See  note  '  on  page  16. 


AN   ASSURED   REPUTATION        55 

would  have  dragged  them  to  punishment  or  aban- 
doned them  to  disgrace. 

Page  xxii. — "Are  the  present  race  to  go  to 
the  grave  without  further  knowledge  of  Mr.  Fox 
[than  that  conveyed  in  the  Preface  to  the 
Fragment]  ? " ' 

He  will  not  be  quite  so  fortunate. 
Fama  loquetur  aniis} 

He  may  surely  expect  a  few  quartos  from  the 
pacific  pen  of  Mr.  Roscoe.^ 

Et  vituld  tu  dignus,  et  hie* 

Page  XXV. — ["  In  early  youth,  I  understand, 
Mr.  Fox  was  distinguished  by  extraordinary  appli- 
cation to  study.  He  was  abroad  for  a  short 
time  at  the  early  age  of  fourteen,  to  which  may 
be  attributed,  probably,  that  fluency,  perfect 
understanding,  and  good  pronunciation  of  French, 
which  most  eminently  marked  him,  amongst  his 
countrymen,  and  even  Frenchmen,  at  Paris.  His 
knowledge  of  Italian  was  nearly  as  great,  and 
probably  to  be  attributed  to  the  same  cause.  If 
I  were  to  sketch  the  divisions  of  his  life,  I  would 
form  them  into  :  His  youth,  warm  and  impetu- 
ous, but  full  of  extraordinary  promise.  His 
middle   age,   energetic   and  patriotic.     His  latter 

'  Trotter  is  alluding  to  Lord  Holland's  preface  to  Fox's  Reign  of 
James  II. 

'  Catullus,  Ixxviii,,  10. 

'  William  lloscoe  (1753-1831)  had  already  published  his  lives  of 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici  and  Leo  X. 

*  Virgil,  Eclog.  ill,  109. 


56  A  GEORGIAN  STATESMAN 

days,   commencing   from   the  French   revolution, 
simple,  grand,  and  subHme."] 

"  His  youth,  warm  and  impetuous.  His  middle 
age,  etc."  His  youth  was  very  well  known  to  have 
exceeded  in  every  kind  of  profligacy  the  youth 
of  any  Englishman  his  contemporary.  To  the 
principles  of  a  Frenchman  he  added  the  habits 
of  a  Malay,^  in  idleness,  drunkenness,  and  gaming. 
In  middle  hfe  he  was  precisely  the  opposite  of 
whoever  was  in  power  until  he  could  spring 
forward  to  the  same  station.  Whenever  Mr.  Pitt 
was  wrong,  Mr.  Fox  was  right,  and  then  only.  His 
morals,  his  taste,  his  literature,  all  were  French ;  ^ 
he  grew  rather  wiser  afterwards.  His  principles 
were  arbitrary  when  the  government  of  France 
was  so.  He  approved  of  every  change  there, 
whether  of  men  or  measures.  The  constituent 
assembly,  the  convention,  Brissot,  Robespierre, 
Tallien,  Barras,  Bonaparte,  all  these  in  succession 
were  the  objects  of  his  admiration.  His  sagacity 
could  find  out  something  to  palliate  every  crime 
they  committed.  All  were  proposed  to  us  as 
worthy  of  our  confidence :  we  could  make  peace 
and  treaties  with  all  of  them,  we  could  do  every- 
thing with  them  but  fight. 

*  "Graining,  with  the  Malays,  is  a  substitute  for  betel." — Landor, 
Works,  iii.  109. 

*  "  Mrs.  Crewe  told  me,"  Samuel  Rogers  said,  "that  on  some  occa- 
sion, when  it  was  remarked  that  Fox  still  retained  his  early  love  for 
France  and  everything  French,  Burke  said  :  '  Yes  ;  he  is  like  a  cat — he 
is  fond  of  the  house,  though  the  family  be  gone.'  " — Table  Talk,  p.  81. 


CHAPTER   II 

WAR    AND     POLICY 

Fox,  the  King,  and  the  nation — Easy  temper  and  lax  principles — 
Pitt's  lost  opportunity — Traitorous  Correspondence  Bill — Pitt's 
passion— Duel  with  Tierney — Eloquence  not  statesmanship — The 
war  with  France — Lord  Hawkesbury's  project — Valenciennes  and 
Dantzig — Expedition  to  the  Dardanelles — Slave  trade — A  dis- 
jointed ministry — Posterity's  judgment. 

[Page  2. — "The  vulgar,  whose  prejudices  it  is 
difficult  to  efface,  and  who  are  more  prone  to 
depreciate  than  to  make  allowances  for  great 
characters,  have  long  imagined,  and  even  still 
continue  to  think,  that  Mr.  Fox  was  a  mere 
dissipated  man  of  pleasure.  This  idea  had  been 
industriously  cherished  and  propagated  by  a  party, 
whose  interested  views  were  promoted  by  keeping 
from  the  councils  of  the  nation  a  man  so  eminently 
their  superior.  The  unprincipled  desires  of  selfish 
ambition  had  kept  him  out  of  stations  for  which 
nature  had  so  eminently  qualified  him.  Destined, 
as  he  appeared,  of  becoming  the  founder  of  a 
political  school  in  England — capable  of  raising 
her  in  the  opinion  of  other  nations,  it  was  his 
ill  fate  to  be]  opposed  by  a  minister  incapable  of 
appreciating  his  merit,  and  unwilling  to  recommend 
it  to  the  approbation  of  his  sovereign,  though  him- 
self unfit  to  be  premier,  and  indeed  inadequate  to  fill 
any  considerable  department  of  the  state." 

8 


58  WAR  AND   POLICY 

I  believe  it  is  not  usual  with  ministers  to  recom- 
mend, very  pressingly,  their  opponents  to  royal 
favour.^  The  King  and  nation  judged  for  them- 
selves. They  had  seen  as  much  of  Mr.  Fox  as 
Mr.  Pitt  had  seen :  they  had  tried  him,  and 
he  was  found  unfit  for  his  situation :  they  tried 
him  again,  and  he  was  more  unfit.  The  same 
tergiversation,  the  same  profligacy,  the  same 
unsteadiness,  the  same  inclining  and  yielding, 
which  never  would  let  him  be  upright,  the  same 
incapacity  of  apportioning  means  to  ends,  and 
the  same  inability  to  retain  that  popular  favour 
which  hardly  ever  totally  deserts  the  statesman 
of  easy  temper  and  lax  principles.  Nothing  but 
the  most  open  and  utter  contempt  of  all  fair 
dealing  with  them  would  make  the  people  fall 
oiF  from  a  man  after  their  own  image,  in  favour 
of  one,  unbending,  contemptuous,  and  scornful, 
and  only  accessible  to  be  repulsive.  No  two 
men  ever  so  grossly  mismanaged  public  affairs. 
Whatever  was  the  government  of  France  since 
the  revolution,  even  under  the  most  rash  and 
inexperienced  of  its  rulers,  and  amidst  difficulties 
in  which  the  most  experienced  of  them  would 
have  been  perplexed,  the  government  of  France 
had  always  the  advantage  of  ours,  always  excelled 
it   in    intelligence    and    in    promptitude.     When 

^  In  1804,  Pitt  urged  the  claims  of  Fox,  but  George  III.  refused 
to  have  anything  to  do  either  with  him  or  Grenville. — Lord  Rosebeby's 
Pitt,  241. 


THE   FRENCH   DIRECTORATE       59 

the  members  of  the  directory  proved  themselves 
accessible  to  bribery,^  the  richest  nation  in  Europe 
— such  then  was  England — formed  no  such  attempt 
or  hope.  They  had  foiled  Mr.  Pitt ;  he  saw  only 
the  men ;  he  was  bold  and  sincere  enough  to 
tell  them  again  and  again  how  he  hated  them, 
and  that  such  an  enemy  of  corruption  would  not 
gratify  their  cupidity.  He  might  have  obtained 
all  the  ostensible  objects  of  the  war  for  less  money 
than  he  expended  in  any  fortnight  of  it.  They 
could  not,  indeed,  with  safety  have  abandoned  one 
village  of  France,  yet  they  could  have  evacuated 
all  Holland  ;  and  their  people,  weary  of  war  and 
taxes,  and  cooling  from  their  revolutionary  frenzy, 
would  have  applauded  a  peace  (durable  because 
equal)  founded  on  this  basis.  But  they  had  thrown 
him  on  the  ground,  and  beaten  him  soundly,  and 
he  kicked  without  an  object  to  kick  at.  When  he 
rose  again,  he  attacked  with  equal  vehemence  those 
who  looked  on  without  sympathy,  and  employed 
his  Attorney-General  to  involve  them  in  some 
sufferings  of  their  own.^ 

•  "  No  sooner  had  Lord  Malmesbury  left  Lille  (Sept.  18,  1797),  than 
Mr.  Pitt  received  a  secret  overture,  on  the  part  of  Barras,  oflFering 
peace  on  his  own  terms,  if  only  an  enormous  sum — no  less  than 
£2,000,000  sterling — could  be  provided  for  Barras  and  his  friends." — 
Stanhope's  Pitt,  iii.  61.  In  his  Letters  to  Lord  Liverpool  (p.  66), 
Landor  says  :  "  There  was  indeed  a  time  when  the  directory  was 
accessible  to  bribery,  as  was  proved  in  the  notorious  case  of  the 
American  Commissioners."  Marshall,  Pinckney,  and  Gerry  were 
offered  a  bribe  for  their  mediation. 

*  The  Traitorous  Correspondence  Bill  was  introduced  by  Sir  John 
Scott,  Attorney-General,  on  March  15,  1793. 


60  WAR   AND   POLICY 

Hurried  by  passion,  he  seldom  had  an  aim,  and 
always  missed  it.  Obstinate  and  perverse,  but  more 
changeable  than  is  usual  with  the  opinionative, 
neither  his  modes  of  attack,  nor  his  motives  for  it, 
were  fixed.  His  warfare  was  more  like  the  rapid 
struggles  and  scratches  of  some  timorous  animal 
just  caught  than  the  deliberate  and  manly  blows 
that  aim  at  the  vitals  of  an  enemy.  He  retracted 
no  insult,  he  renounced  no  error.  The  son  of 
a  chivalrous  father,  whose  personal  and  private 
view  of  honour  was  serene  and  clear,  whose  sense 
of  political  and  official  duties  was,  and  was  only  in 
a  moderate  degree,  subordinate  to  his  sense  of  the 
religious  ;  this  very  son,  whose  preceptor  was  a 
bishop,^  this  our  defender  against  atheism,  who  had 
enacted  and  enforced  so  many  fasts,  and  supplica- 
tions, and  forms  of  prayer,  went  forth  on  a  Sunday 
morning,  with  a  pistol  in  his  hand,  to  meet  an 
importunate  accountant^  who  had  questioned  him 
in  the  House.  How  happens  it  that  inconsistency 
is  so  frequently,  so  almost  perpetually,  the  attendant 
of  eloquence  ?  Is  fickleness  but  one  remove  from 
facility  ?  or  is  the  cause  to  be  found  in  that  self- 
deception  which  comes  from  deceiving  others, 
and  which,  while  every  thing  moves  with  it,  is 
unconscious  that  it  moves  ? 

Mr.  Pitt  was  eloquent,  so  was  Mr.  Fox  :  so  were 

^  The  Rev.  George  Tomline,  afterwards  Pretyman,  Bishop  of  Lincoln, 
1757,  was  the  younger  Pitt's  tutor  at  Cambridge. 
*  Pitt  fought  his  duel  with  George  Tierney  on  May  27,  1798. 


GOVERNMENT   BY  ORATORY      61 

Anytus  and  Melitus,^  and  all  the  demagogues 
whose  vociferations  have  preceded  the  downfall  of 
a  state.  In  England  it  is  for  eloquence  alone  that 
men  are  chosen  to  fill  the  offices  of  government. 
If  they  can  speak  three  hours  together,  it  is  thought, 
with  reason,  that  they  can  do  great  things.  Never- 
theless it  has  been  the  opinion  of  some  that  there 
is  a  latent  flaw  and  unsoundness  in  this  reasoning, 
and  that  its  application  ought  not  to  be  universal 
or  unreserved.  They  have  suspected  it  hence  has 
happened  that,  with  such  resources  as  no  nation 
ever  possessed,  we  have  done  so  extremely  Uttle 
against  an  enemy  who,  according  to  the  minister 
himself,  had  no  resources  at  all.  We  have  given 
this  enemy  both  pleas  and  power  enough  to  regulate 
every  court  in  Europe,  to  drill  every  king,  and  to 
tear  the  epaulet  from  every  emperor.  There  was 
a  time  when  twenty  thousand  Enghshmen  might 
have  marched  to  Paris  ;  not  in  the  way  imagined  by 
such  people  as  Lord  Hawkesbury  and  Mr.  Canning,^ 

^  The  accusers  of  Socrates. 

*  Compare  this  with  Burke  :  "  Had  we  carried  on  the  war  on  the  side 
of  France  which  looks  towards  the  Channel  or  the  Atlantic,  we  should 
have  attacked  our  enemy  on  his  weak  and  unarmed  side." — Second  Letter 
on  a  Regicide  Peace,  p.  98. 

As  for  the  plan  of  a  rapid  advance  into  the  heart  of  France,  urged  in 
1793,  Lord  Stanhope  says  :  "  When  Mr.  Jenkinson  [afterwards  Lord 
Hawkesbury]  ventured  in  the  House  of  Commons  to  declare  his  approval 
of  it,  the  idea  was  received  with  derision.  Long  afterwards  .  .  .  the 
words  '  Lord  Hawkesbury's  march  to  Paris  '  were  the  burden  of  maiiy 
a  jest  or  satirical  song  against  him," — Life  of  Pitt,  ii.  204. 

Fox,  in  his  letter  to  the  electors  of  Westminster,  1793,  alluding  to 
Mr.  Jenkinson's  project,  exclaims:  "The  conquest  of  France!  O 
calumniated  crusaders,  how  rational  and  moderated  were  your  projects  ! 


62  WAR  AND   POLICY 

along  a  pleasant  paved  road  shaded  with  elms  and 
apple-trees,  through  Calais  and  Amiens,  where  the 
people  once  were  English,  and  are  still  vastly  our 
friends,  but  as  allies  to  fifty  thousand  Royalists  in 
La  Vendue,  led  by  a  Cond^.  But  Valenciennes 
was  taken  in  the  name  of  the  emperor  of  Germany  ; 
there  was  such  an  emperor  then,  and  the  people 
of  France  saw  clearly  that  the  sword  which  we 
carried  under  the  pretext  of  loyalty  was  drawn 
solely  for  ambition.  There  was  a  time  when  the 
same  twenty  thousand  would  have  turned  the 
balance  in  favour  of  Austria ;  but  they  were 
scattered  all  over  the  world,  as  if  Napoleon  had 
ordered  them  into  such  cantonments.  Russia  had 
beaten  the  French.  If  we  had  relieved  Dantzig^ 
•their  left  wing  would  not  merely  have  been  turned, 
but  cut  off;  it  was  without  support.  There  was 
also  a  time  when  the  force  I  have  mentioned  would 
have  formed  a  nucleus  for  the  armies  of  Prussia, 
Sweden,  Hesse,  Hanover.  Exasperated  by  the 
recent  cruelties  of  the  enemy,  they  would  no  longer 
have  fought  for  one  government  or  another  :  they 
would  have  fought  for  themselves,  and  fought  well. 
Lastly,  there  was  a  time  too — if  in  such  circum- 
stances it  is  worth  remembering — when  the  wretched 

O  !  much-injured  Louis  XIV.^  upon  what  slight  grounds  have  you  heen 
accused  of  restless  and  inordinate  ambition !  O  !  tame  and  feeble 
Cervantes,  with  what  a  timid  pencil  and  faint  colours  have  you  painted 
the  portrait  of  a  disordered  imagination  ! 

•  Dautzig  surrendered  to  Bonaparte  May  27,  1807. 


A   DEMAGOGUE'S   BLUNDERS       63 

natives  of  Egypt  ^  might  have  been  emancipated. 
But  the  country  could  not  be  secured,  long 
together,  by  three  or  four  thousand  men  ;  Mr.  Fox 
must  be  weaker  than  a  babe  or  drowsier  than 
a  kitten  to  suppose  it.  The  attempt  to  awe 
Constantinople^  was  worse  than  Pittite,  a  city 
where  there  are  more  stout  fighting  men,  men  of 
Hves  and  habits  altogether  military,  than  in  any 
other  throughout  the  world.  I  have  spoken  already 
of  Buenos  Ayres.  So  many  instances  of  miserable 
folly  have  never  occurred  within  so  short  a  period, 
I  will  not  say  in  England,  I  will  not  say  in  modem 
Europe ;  I  will  say  under  the  most  stupid,  the 
most  slothful,  the  most  brutalised  of  Roman,  or 
Byzantine,  or  Asiatic  emperors.  Xerxes  and 
Darius  could  afford  a  good  many ;  ours  would 
have  exhausted  them.  Collect  and  place  before 
your  eyes  all  the  errors  of  these  poor  creatures,  and 
you  cannot,  I  repeat  it,  bring  together  such  a  mass 
within  so  small  a  compass.  You  may  trace  within 
the  short  administration  of  one  demagogue  all  that 

*  In  March  J 1807,  five  thousand  men  under  General  Mackenzie  Frazer 
were  sent  to  Alexandria,  which  capitulated  ;  but  the  further  operations 
failed. 

'  In  February,  1807,  a  force  under  Sir  Thomas  Duckworth  was  sent 
to  the  Dardanelles  to  favour  the  views  of  Russia  and  to  counteract 
French  ascendency  at  Constantinople.  Writing  on  June  5,  1807, 
Mr.  F.  Jackson  said  :  "  The  loss  of  our  troops  in  Egypt  has  been  very 
great,  and  is  attributed  to  the  ill-advised  plans  of  the  late  Cabinet,  and 
to  the  still  worse-conducted  execution  of  them  by  the  generals.  Never 
have  our  arms  been  so  disgraced  as  in  that  affair,  and  in  the  business 
of  the  Dardanelles." — Diaries,  etc.,  of  Sir  George  Jackson,  ii.  123.  But 
Fox,  who  died  on  Sept.  13,  1806,  could  not  be  blamed. 


64  WAR  AND  FOLIC  V 

corrupts  the  air  and  poisons  the  springs  of  freedom, 
while,  with  illusive  zeal  to  unrivet  the  fetter,  he 
hammered  the  chain  of  slavery  red-hot.  Hope 
long  deferred  maketh  the  heart  sick.^  How  many, 
who  relied  on  his  promises,  were  made  very  able 
critics  of  such  sentences  !  The  abolition  of  the 
trade  in  negroes  we  had  influence  enough  in 
Europe  to  have  effected,  and  we  did  not.^  The  act 
was  ill  digested ;  the  prohibitions  evasory  and 
incomplete.  Mr.  Fox  might  have  appealed  to 
Bonaparte,  and  his  love  of  glory,  to  abolish  it  on 
the  continent.  It  would  have  cost  him  nothing 
but  a  decree.  He  would  have  been  proud  of  having 
been  consulted.  Even  a  petition  here  would  not 
have  been  an  act  of  baseness  ;  the  less  so,  the 
greater  the  petitioner.  To  sound  him — an  expres- 
sion, I  am  afraid,  not  applicable  to  our  politicians 
in  reference  to  him — was  not  the  right  method. 
If  we  wished  the  thing  done  effectually,  and  not 
merely  the  credit  of  promoting  it,  we  should  have 
addressed  his  minister  in  somewhat  of  this  language : 
"  War,  then,  between  our  nations  must  continue. 
There  are  many  concessions  which  we  believed  that 
our  power  and  our  moderation  might  demand. 
But  if  both  countries,  unhappily,  are  still  subject  to 

*  Proverbs,  xiii.  12. 

*  On  June  10,  1806,  Fox  moved  a  resolution  for  the  abolition  of 
the  slave  trade.  After  forty  years,  he  said,  of  political  life,  he  could 
retire  with  contentment  if  he  carried  his  resolution.  The  Royal  assent 
to  the  Bill  abolishing  the  trade  was  given  on  March  26,  1806. 


PITT  AND   THE   SLAVE  TRADE    65 

irritations  and  jealousies,  which  will  cease  only 
under  the  infliction  of  greater  sufferings,  let 
us  atone  to  humanity  in  the  best  way  we  can, 
making  the  readiest  and  least  costly  sacrifices. 
The  English  are  almost  the  only  gainers  by  a  most 
nefarious  and  unnatural  traffic ;  others,  however, 
share  in  its  patronage  and  its  disgrace.  We  desire 
its  abolition.  Let  the  Emperor  say  whether  France 
or  England  shall  redeem  her  honour  first ;  which 
shall  first  employ  all  her  influence  and  power  in 
demanding  and  enforcing  the  abolition  of  the 
African  slave-trade  through  the  world." 

I  think  Napoleon  would  have  claimed  it  as  one 
of  the  conceptions  of  his  mighty  genius.  It  is 
among  the  few  things  which  I  would  entrust  to 
his  generosity,  knowing  that  I  could  lose  nothing, 
and  might  gain  much.  When  a  writer  in  a  state- 
paper  speaks  of  the  wants  or  desires  of  humanity, 
it  is  considered  as  merely  a  piece  of  cant  to  lull 
his  countrymen  asleep,  should  his  adversary  be 
very  bloody-minded ;  that  is,  if  he  applies  them 
to  his  own  country,  to  the  enemy's,  or  to  any 
hypothetical  or  imaginary  one.  Let  him  appeal 
and  plead  in  favour  of  some  weak  and  abject 
race,  not  subject  to  either  of  the  belligerents, 
not  liable  to  become  so,  and  what  was  common- 
place in  the  last  leaf,  comes  in  this  with  all  the 
cogency,  and  more  than  all,  of  argument.  It 
raises  a  becoming  shame  and  generous  desire,  by 

9 


66  WAR   AND   POIJCY 

the  native  graces  and  novel  beauty  of  disinterested- 
ness. Perhaps  I  have  spoken  too  much  on  the 
omissions  of  a  neghgent,  disjointed  ministry,  and, 
some  will  think,  too  vehemently  against  the 
leader.  It  is  true  that  almost  every  possible 
case  of  mismanagement  has  been  stated.  The 
facts  exist.  This  is  my  answer.  Those  who 
cannot  see  them,  those  who  overlook  them  in 
the  public  records,  are  not  hkely  to  discover  what 
we  lost  of  prosperity  by  their  inattention,  or  of 
glory  by  their  inactivity.  We  have  equally  to 
regret  that  they  failed  in  every  thing  abroad,  and 
did  not  fail  in  almost  every  thing  at  home.  If  any 
man  will  come  forward  and  prove  even  this  to 
be  exaggerated,  and  surely  nothing  worse  can  be 
uttered  or  imagined  of  a  ministry — statesmen 
would  be  an  absurd  expression — I  will  then 
acknowledge  myself  a  very  violent  and  very  base 
calumniator,  an  implacable  enemy  of  my  native 
land,  and — what  pensioners  and  reversionists  think 
infinitely  more  discreditable — a  man  without  a 
stake  in  it.  If  I  could  argue  with  indifference, 
with  coolness,  or  with  patience,  of  people  who 
have  thrown  down  their  principles  in  their  hurry 
to  reach  the  cabinet  and  who  have  brought  such 
ignominy  on  the  country,  to  say  nothing  of 
distress  and  danger,  I  should  then  indeed  be  a 
character  most  truly  despicable. 

I  survey  Mr.  Fox  and  Mr.  Pitt  as  others  will 


PUBLIC   AND   PRIVATE   VIRTUE     67 

survey  them  a  century  hence,  and  as,  according  to 
my  humble  views,  they  appear  to  higher  powers 
and  purer  inteUigences.  I  would  estimate  all  men 
by  their  wisdom  and  their  virtue.  In  high  stations 
these  indeed  are  the  most  assailed  and  shaken  ; 
but  they  also  have  the  advantage  of  showing  their 
forms  more  distinctly,  and  striking  their  roots 
more  deep.  Nearly  all  men  have,  one  time  or 
other,  been  placed  in  as  trying  situations  as  either 
of  these  ministers.  The  emergencies  of  private 
Ufe  require  as  much  circumspection  and  discern- 
ment as  those  of  public.  Persons  are  placed  all 
around  a  prime  minister ;  some  bring  intelligence, 
some  forward  despatches,  many  are  ready  to  assist 
him  with  their  counsel,  and  participate  in  any 
obloquy  his  determinations  may  incur.  Precepts 
and  precedents  lie  everywhere  round  about  him ; 
if  he  errs  in  following  them  he  is  pardoned,  because 
he  did  follow  them,  and  praised  because  he  was 
soundly  constitutional ;  if  he  rejects  or  never 
reads  them,  the  scruples  of  a  king  or  the  divisions 
of  a  cabinet  absolve  him.  Difficulties  of  a  private 
kind  hamper  men  by  their  closeness  and  con- 
tinuity. On  the  worst  occasions  they  can  hardly 
ask  advice,  on  the  lighter  they  neglect  it.  Hence 
it  has  happened  that  men  of  great  attainments, 
philosophers  and  statesmen  too,  have  acted  in 
domestic  affairs  inconsistently  with  their  wisdom, 
their  glory,  and  their  happiness.     Life  appears,  in 


68  WAR  AND  POLICY 

these  instances,  like  a  game  at  billiards.  Those 
who  were  surrounded  by  spectators  and  admirers, 
at  a  larger  table,  and  with  a  profusion  of  light 
falling  on  it  from  above,  strike,  in  a  private  and 
less  brilliant  room,  a  lesser  ball  erroneously.  Let 
us  remember,  too — for  the  recollection  will  be 
useful  when  the  allusion  is  forgotten — that  he  who 
silenced  batteries  and  navies,  and  scattered  them 
to  be  the  sport  of  all  the  elements,  was  baffled  by 
the  fish  nets  of  Boulogne.^  When  I  come,  as  I 
intend  presently,  to  make  a  comparison,  not 
between  the  two  English  ministers,  but  between 
one  of  them  and  Washington,  I  shall  show  that 
difficulties  may  be,  and  have  been  overcome,  far 
more  complicated  and  discouraging  than  either  of 
these  encountered.  The  present  men  have  com- 
mitted fewer  faults  ;  they  act  with  more  firmness, 
and  inspire  more  confidence.  They  also  have  their 
errors.  They  ought  never  to  have  interfered  in 
the  affairs  of  South  America.  There  is  a  risk, 
almost  a  certainty,  of  alienating  from  us  not  only 
that  country,  but  Spain.  Both  will  be  dissatisfied. 
Urged  by  either  party,  we  should  have  firmly  and 
peremptorily  refused.  Even  that  party  itself 
would  place  more  confidence  in  us,  and  we  should 
have  left  a  deep  authentic  impression  of  our  dis- 
interestedness and  our  integrity. 

'  Referring  either  to  Nelson's  attack  on  the  French  flotilla  at 
Boulogne,  August  15,  1801,  or  to  Sir  Sidney  Smith's  attack  with 
catamarans  on  Oct.  2,  1804. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    KING   AND    HIS    MINISTERS 

Chatham's  eloquence — His  pension — A  minister  in  the  witness-box — 
Pitt  all  account-book — De  mortuis — The  Sinking  Fund — Fox  in 
retirement — As  a  man  of  letters — Pascal — National  monuments — 
A  Pantheon  for  Hyde  Park — Statues  of  great  men — Bacon  and 
Raleigh — George  Washington  and  William  Pitt  compared — A  con- 
temptible Opposition — George  HI.  and  the  Army — The  American 
Revolution — A  limited  monarchy — Forms  of  government — A 
Prime  Minister  in  leading-strings — Failure  of  coalitions — The 
Roman  Triumvirate. 

Page  3  of  the  Memoirs. — ["Mr.  Pitt,  under  the 
controul  of  an  extensive  and  liberal  genius,  like  that 
of  Mr.  Fox,  might  have  been  a  useful  minister  of 
finance  ;  but,  in  attempting  to  regulate  the  concerns 
of  the  world,  his  vigour  was  creative  of  destruction, 
and  his  imperious  spirit,  so  unworthy  a  true 
statesman,  was  prejudicial  to  liberty  abroad  and 
dangerous  to  it  at  home.  The  financial  dictator 
of  Downing  Street  was  unfit  to  cope  with  the 
consummate  military  and  diplomatic  characters  that 
had  newly  risen  upon  the  Continent ;  and  it  is 
probable  that  even  his  father,  Lord  Chatham,  a 
man  great  through  the  weakness  of  France,  would 
have  been  foiled  in  such  a  contest ;  certainly  not 
with  so  much  disgrace,  but,  perhaps,  with  equal 
injury  to  the  country."] 

"  Lord    Chatham,   a   man    great    through    the 

69 


70    THE   KING   AND   HIS   MINISTERS 

weakness  of  France."  Not  entirely  so.  He  was 
rather  great  per  se.  His  eloquence  was  more  like 
the  eloquence  of  Demosthenes^  than  Mr.  Fox's 
was :  one  was  invariably  high,  the  other  never 
rose.  Both  were  wrong ;  but  it  is  better  that 
admiration  should  flag  from  its  continuance  than 
that  it  never  should  be  excited.  Demosthenes, 
in  the  general  tenor  of  his  oratory,  was  warm, 
equable,  and  sincere  ;  in  the  higher  parts  there  was 
a  solemnity,  a  sanctitude,  an  enthusiastic,  vivifying, 
all-pervading  spirit,  by  virtue  of  which  every  petty 
passion  lay  inanimate  and  extinct.  In  the  ampli- 
tude of  a  soul  so  equable  and  so  pure,  he  saw 
no  enemies  but  the  enemies  of  his  country. 
Wherever  they  arose,  his  fire  was  directed  to  one 
point,  and  nothing  stood  before  it.  Better  is  it 
that  such  men  as  Augustulus,  or  Commodus,  or 
Louis  XV.  should  be  called  Caesar  than  that 
genius  should  submit  to  the  same  outrages  as 
truth,  and  Fox  be  called  a  Demosthenes.  If 
Lord  Chatham  more  resembled  him  as  an  orator, 
the  resemblance  ended  here.  In  Demosthenes 
was  the  pride  of  an  inflexible  republican ;  in 
Lord  Chatham  was  the  "  pride  that  licks  the 
dust."^     He  accepted  a  pension   from  the  enemy 

*  Horace  Walpole  said  that  Chatham,  in  the  speech  he  delivered  on 
November  13,  1755,  surpassed  Cicero  and  Demosthenes.  Sir  James 
Mackintosh,  writing  in  The  Monthly  Repository,  September,  1807, 
declared  that  Fox  was  ''the  most  Demosthenean  speaker  since 
Demosthenes." 

'  Pope's  Prologue  to  Satires,  333. 


LORD   CHATHAM'S   PENSION         71 

he  had  reviled.  One  had  been  granted  to  his 
sister  by  Lord  Bute.^  He  wrote  an  angry  letter 
to  her,  and  told  her  "he  had  hoped  that  the 
names  of  Pitt  and  pension  would  never  come 
together."  He  received  one  himself,  soon  after, 
from  the  same  person  ;  and  his  own  letter  was 
his  sister's  congratulation.  The  King  had  shewn 
the  same  aversion  to  him  as  he  uniformly  shewed 
to  every  man  of  genius :  when  the  public  accla- 
mation forced  him  again  into  the  council,  he 
approached  the  sovereign  and  courted  his  favour, 
with  a  degree  of  reverential  humility  which  it 
would  have  been  hardly  less  base  to  have  felt 
than  to  have  feigned.  Some  courtiers,  at  a 
distance,  could  not  believe  the  evidence  of  their 
senses.  "  Yes,  yes,  it  is  Pitt,"  said  one  behind ; 
"  I  see  his  hook-nose  between  his  knees."  ^ 

The  son  was  never  guilty  of  a  meanness  such 

^  When  Mrs.  Anne  Pitt,  sister  of  William  Pitt  the  elder,  received 
a  pension,  he  wrote  to  her  that  he  grieved  to  see  the  name  of  Pitt  in  a 
list  of  pensions.  On  October  6,  1761,  the  day  after  his  resignation, 
a  pension  of  £3,000  a  year  was  settled  upon  Pitt  himself,  for  three 
lives.  His  sister  made  a  copy  of  his  letter,  and  meant  to  send  it  to 
him,  hut  was  restrained  by  friends. 

Horace  Walpole  and  Thomas  Gray  blamed  Chatham  for  accepting 
either  peerage  or  pension.  "  What ! "  said  Walpole,  "  to  blast  one's 
character  for  the  sake  of  a  paltry  annuity  and  a  long-necked  peerage  !" 
Chatham's  biographer,  F.  Thackeray,  writes  :  "  How  malignant  or 
obtuse  must  that  mind  be  which  cannot  distinguish  the  case  of  Mr. 
Pitt  from  that  of  the  common  herd  of  pensioners." — Life  of  Chatham, 
i.  693. 

*  ''  It  is  told  of  Chatham  that  when  he  met  a  bishop  he  bowed  so  low 
that  his  nose  could  be  seen  between  his  knees.  So  appalling  a  suavity 
of  demeanour  inspired  probably  even  more  terror  than  his  indomitable 
eye." — Lord  Rosebbry's  Pitt,  p.  64. 


72    THE   KING  AND   HIS  MINISTERS 

as  this.  His  neck  was  unbent  when  his  word  was 
broken  and  his  honour  cast  away  ;  even  when  he 
came  into  a  court  of  justice  ^  and  swore  he  had 
forgotten  what  he  had  sworn  he  never  would 
forget.  Lord  Chatham  was  all  romance ;  Mr. 
William  was  all  account-book.  The  above  is, 
however,  too  plain  a  proof  that  neither  his  memory 
nor  his  ledger  were  to  be  trusted. 

Page  4. — "  [I  have,  however,  no  desire  in  stig- 
matising one  of  these  personages  (Pitt  and  Fox) 
to  elevate  the  other  1]     Both  rest  in  the  grave."  ^ 

This  is,  of  all  reasons,  the  most  weak  and 
wretched,  why  people  should  not  be  censured  for 
the  evil  they  have  done.  It  might  indeed  have 
some  force  and  validity  if  the  evil  and  example 
ceased  totally  with  their  lives.  But  even  then 
not  much.     If  they  are  living,  a  writer  tells  you 

'  For  Pitt's  evidence  at  the  trial  of  Home  Tooke^  in  1794,  see  State 
Trials,  xxv.  381.  The  Prime  Minister  had  been  summoned  by  the 
defence  to  prove  that  the  objects  of  the  reform  movement  in  which  he 
had  taken  a  part  were  similar  to  those  of  the  agitation  with  which 
Home  Tooke  and  Major  John  Cartwright  were  connected.  In  his 
imaginary  conversation  between  Pitt  and  Canning,  Landor  makes  Pitt 
say  :  *'  I  deferred  from  session  to  session  a  reform  in  Parliament, 
because,  having  sworn  to  promote  it  by  all  means  in  my  power^  I  did 
not  wish  to  seem  perjured  to  the  people.  In  the  aifair  of  Maidstone 
nobody  could  prove  me  so.  I  only  swore  I  had  forgotten  what  nobody 
but  myself  could  swear  that  I  remembered." — Works,  iii.  196.  Landor 
seems  to  have  mixed  up  the  trial  of  Home  Tooke  with  that  of  Arthur 
O'Connor  and  others. 

*  Trotter  adds  :  "  But  I  should  deem  it  derogatory  to  Mr.  Fox's 
Memory  if  I  paid  any  posthumous  compliments  to  the  character  and 
talents  of  a  minister,  of  whom  the  best  that  can  be  said  is  that  he  failed 
through  ignorance,  and  ruined  his  country  through  mistake." 


PROFLIGACY  OF  MR.   FOX         73 

he  will  not  hurt  the  feelings  of  the  living ;  if 
dead,  it  is  ungenerous,  he  says,  to  attack  the 
character  of  those  who  are  incapable  of  making 
their  defence.  If  any  one  is  guilty  oi  falsehood 
against  the  hving,  let  the  laws  chastise  him  ;  if 
against  the  dead,  let  infamy  pursue  him ;  let  his 
memory  be  held  in  detestation. 

Tiberius  and  Sejanus  "  rest  in  the  grave  " ;  but 
the  historian  has  recorded  their  actions,  and  they 
really  seem  considerably  amiss.  Poor  Domitian 
has  not  even  a  fly  to  bear  him  company,  yet 
some  people  will  be  so  uncharitable  as  to  whisper 
things  to  his  disadvantage.  It  might  not  indeed 
have  been  quite  expedient,  nor  altogether  safe, 
perhaps,  to  say  such  strong  things  in  his  presence ; 
but  then  how  vastly  more  liberal  and  manly  I 

Page  5. — "  The  passions  of  the  vulgar  made 
and  kept  Mr.  Pitt  minister."^ 

No,  no ;  the  vices,  the  profligacy,  the  perfidy 
of  Mr.  Fox  made  Mr.  Pitt  minister.  He  was 
at  length  more  grave  and  decent.  Peace 
made  the  nation  thrive,  and  her  prosperity  was 
attributed  to  Mr.  Pitt.  The  project  of  the  sinking 
fund  ^  was   laid  before  him  ;   he  rejected  it ;  yet 

'  Trotter  adds  :  "  But  the  vulgar  themselves  are  daily  receiving  con- 
vincing proofs  how  little  value  they  have  received  for  their  money." 

*  Pitt  took  the  main  idea  of  the  sinking  fund,  which  he  started  in 
1786,  from  Dr.  R.  Price,  author  of  Treatise  on  Reversionary  Annuities, 

1771,  and  an  Appeal  to  the  Public  on  the  Subject  of  the  National  Debt, 

1772.  WTien  Pitt  resolved,  says  Lecky,  upon  the  reduction  of  the 

10 


74    THE   KING  AND   HIS   MINISTERS 

the  adoption  of  it  afterwards  is  the  only  financial 
merit  which  his  party  can  attribute  to  him.  If 
it  is  glorious,  it  is  a  glory  which  requires  not  to 
be  inscribed  upon  his  tomb.  Leave  it  alone,  and 
it  will  have  matter  to  act  upon  long  enough. 

Page  7. — ["  When  I  first  had  the  happiness  of 
knowing  Mr.  Fox,  he  had  retired,  in  a  great 
measure,  from  public  life,  and  was  inclining  toward 
the  evening  of  his  days.  A  serene  and  cloudless 
magnanimity,  respecting  the  pursuit  of  power, 
raised  him  to  an  enviable  felicity.  His  habits 
were  very  domestic,  and  his  taste  for  hterature 
peculiarly  strong,  as  well  as  peculiarly  elegant. 
His  love  for  a  country  life,  with  all  its  simple  and 
never-fatiguing  charms,  was  great.  His  temper 
disposed  him  to  enjoy  and  never  to  repine.  Had 
his  great  powers  been  employed  for  the  benefit  of 
mankind  in  Hterary  composition  and  researches 
after  knowledge — instead  of  being  exhausted  in 
useless  debates  .  .  . — the  world,  and  Europe  in 
particular,  would  have  reaped  advantages  which  his 
country  blindly  rejected ;  and  that  great  mind, 
which  made  httle  impression  upon  a  disciplined 
oligarchical  senate,  would  more  efficaciously  have 
operated  upon  the  philosophers,  the  statesmen,  and 
the  patriots  of  Europe."] 

"  Had  his  great  powers  been  employed  for  the 
benefit  of  mankind  in  composition,"  they  would 

national  debt,  he  received  from  Dr.  Price  three  separate  plans,  one  of 
which  he  adopted  with  scarcely  any  change,  though  without  any  public 
recognition  of  the  author. — History,  v,  324. 


POET  AND   HISTORIAN  75 

have  left  him  a  secondary  character  in  history, 
poetry,  or  criticism.  His  verses  ^  have  httle  ease, 
little  imagination,  Httle  spirit.  In  history  he  has 
produced  by  long  study  what  many  young  men 
at  the  universities,  with  the  materials  before  them, 
would  have  produced  in  one  term.  Few  com- 
positions have  more  faults  or  greater.  In  criticism 
he  was  the  admirer  of  whatever  was  most  regular 
and  orderly — the  reverse  of  his  own  character ; 
just  as  the  amiable  Thomson,  mindful  of  Scotland, 
lavishes  the  enthusiasm  of  his  poetry  on  the 
odours  of  spring : 

Ethereal  mildness,  come,^ 

and  the  novelists  of  the  Palais  Royal  are  enamoured 
of  modesty  and  blushes. 

Page  8. — "  [At  a  time  when  other  men  become 
more  devoted  to  the  pursuits  of  ambition,  or  to 
the  mean  and  universal  passion,  avarice ;  and  when 
their  characters  accordingly  become  rigid,  and 
unproductive  of  new  sentiments,  Mr.  Fox  had  aU 
the  sensibility  and  freshness  of  youth,  with  the 
energetic  glow  of  manhood  in  its  prime.    Knowledge 

•  ^'Like  all  men  of  genius,"  Sir  James  Mackintosh  says  of  Fox, 
'*  he  delighted  to  take  refuge  in  poetry  from  the  vulgarity  and  irritation 
of  business.  His  own  verses  have  claimed  no  low  place  among  those 
which  the  French  call  vers  de  societe." — Monthly  Repository,  September, 
1807.  Perhaps  all  but  his  verses  to  Mrs.  Crewe  and  those  addressed 
to  Mrs.  Fox  "  on  his  attaining  the  age  of  fifty,"  are  forgotten.  Sydney 
Smith  said :  "  We  are  no  admirers  of  Mr.  Fox's  poetry.  His  vers  de 
sociHe  appear  to  us  flat  and  insipid.  To  write  verses  was  the  only 
thing  which  Mr.  Fox  ever  attempted  to  do  without  doing  well." — 
Edinburgh  Review,  1809. 

*  "  Come,  gentle  spring,  ethereal  mildness,  come." — Seasons,  i.  1. 


76    THE   KING  AND   HIS   MINISTERS 

of  the  world  had  not  at  all  hardened  or  disgusted 
him.  He  knew  men,  and  pitied  rather  than  con- 
demned them.]  It  was  singular  to  behold  such  a 
character  in  England,  whose  national  characteristic 
is  rather  philosophic  reasoning  than  the  sensibihty 
of  genius." 

And  surely  there  is  more  philosophic  reasoning 
in  Mr.  Fox  than  sensibility  of  genius ;  in  his 
writings  most  certainly.  But  national  character- 
istics never  reach  the  more  elevated  regions  of 
mind ;  men  of  genius  are  not  marked  by  the  same 
reddle  as  those  on  the  common  of  the  world. 
Do  we  find  in  Pascal  any  thing  of  the  lying, 
gasconading,  vapouring  Frenchman?  On  the 
contrary,  do  we  not  find,  in  despite  of  the  most 
miserable  language,  all  the  sober  and  retired 
graces  of  style,  all  the  confident  ease  of  manliness 
and  strength,  with  an  honest  but  not  abrupt 
simplicity,  which  appeals  to  the  reason,  but  is  also 
admitted  to  the  heart?  Let  this  man,  if  any,  be 
compared  with  Demosthenes.  He  was  not  less, 
he  hardly  could  be  greater.  The  same  sincerity, 
the  same  anxiety,  the  same  fervour,  was  in  both, 
for  the  only  great  objects  of  a  high  and  aspiring 
soul,  of  laudable,  perhaps  of  pardonable,  ambition. 
One  was  for  Athens ;  the  other  was  not  indeed 
for  Paris  or  for  France,  but  for  what  most  truly 
was  his  country,  whose  rewards  he  would  lay 
open  to  all  men. 


NATIONAL  MONUMENTS  77 

Page  17. — "  [.  .  .  the  most  illustrious,  but  often 
the  most  calumniated,  of  public  men  in  the 
eighteenth  century  (C.  J.  Fox).]  No  monument 
yet  marks  a  nation's  gratitude  towards  him.' 


"  1 


We  have  thrown  away  more  money  than  enough 
on  monuments ;  yet  I  would  willingly  see  in 
Hyde  Park,  just  above  the  water,  a  building 
Hke  the  Pantheon  at  Rome,  with  a  statue,  and 
only  the  names,  of  all  our  most  truly  great  men 
from  Alfred  to  Nelson:  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  Sir 
Philip,  and  Algernon  Sydney,  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
J.  Hampden,  W.  Penn,  Blake,  Locke,  Newton, 
Marlborough,  Washington,  Frankhn,  Nelson. 
These  are  our  most  illustrious  characters,  in  poli- 
tics, war,  and  literature ;  nor  can  any  modern 
nation  produce  so  many  of  equal  greatness. 
Bacon  I  have  not  mentioned.  Him  I  would  re- 
serve for  a  station  in  Westminster  Hall.  He  should 
have  an  inscription.  One  side  of  the  pedestal  should 
contain  his  sentence  on  Raleigh  ;  the  other  that 
sentence  which  was  afterwards  passed  on  himself.^ 
We  lost  Washington,  but  he  was  ours,  and  death 
gives  him  back.     No  man  ever  encountered  such 

'  Trotter  proceeds :  "  And  the  all-prevailing  ascendency  of  the 
system  which  Lord  Bute,  Lord  North,  and  Mr.  William  Pitt  suc- 
cessively defended  and  propagated,  has  stifled  every  parliamentary 
expression  of  respect  and  veneration  for  the  memory  of  Charles  James 
Fox,  while  a  successful  skirmish  or  a  dubious  battle  unites  aU  parties 
in  conferring  honours  and  rewards  ! " 

*  It  was  Bacon,  as  High  Chancellor  of  England,  who  on  October  24, 
1618,  Raleigh  having  been  brought  before  the  Council,  informed  him 
of  its  resolution  to  advise  King  James  to  order  the  sentence  of  1603 


78    THE   KING  AND   HIS   MINISTERS 

difficulties  in  politics  and  war:  no  man  ever 
adapted  one  to  the  other  with  such  skill.  In 
fortitude,  justice,  and  equanimity,  no  man  ever 
excelled  him ;  no  exemplar  has  been  recommended 
to  our  gratitude,  love,  and  veneration,  by  the 
most  partial  historian,  or  the  most  encomiastic 
biographer,  in  which  so  many  and  so  great 
virtues,  pubhc  and  private,  were  united.  His 
name,  his  manners,  his  language,  his  sentiments, 
his  soul,  were  English  ;  and  the  wretches  went 
peaceably  to  the  grave  who  traitorously  separated 
him  from  England  I 

Compare  the  disadvantages  he  had  to  encounter 
in  a  war  against  this  country  with  what  Mr. 
Pitt  had  to  encounter  against  France.  America 
had  few  soldiers,  and  no  treasury;  Mr.  Pitt  had 
a  large,  well-disciplined  army,  and  the  richest 
exchequer  in  the  world  at  his  disposal.  In 
America  there  was  no  union  of  council,  and  a 
scattered  population.  In  England,  Mr.  Pitt  was 
the  leader  of  a  House  of  Commons  in  which  he 
could  command  an  absolute  majority ;  and  the 
people  were  all  within  his  reach.  I  have  not  the 
heart  to  pursue  the  parallel. 

Page  17. — "Nor  do  I  think  it  is  one  moment 

to  be  carried  out.  But  the  records  of  the  sitting  have  been  lost,  and 
the  exact  words  used  by  Bacon  are  not  discoverable. — Martin  Hume's 
Walter  Raleigh.  On  May  3,  1622^  Bacon  was  sentenced  to  a  fine  of 
£40,000  and  imprisonment  during  the  King's  pleasure,  and  debarred 
from  sitting  in  parliament  or  coming  within  the  verge  of  the  court. 


A  DEGRADED   OPPOSITION        79 

to  be  admitted  that  so  unfortunate  a  politician  as 
his  parliamentary  rival,  could  have  been  Mr.  Fox's 
coadjutor  in  office.  Their  principles  were  diametri- 
cally opposite."  ^ 

Unfortunate  he  was,  indeed  I  But  Mr.  Fox  was 
equally  so  in  every  plan  and  project,  and  had  the 
additional  mortification  of  being  the  dupe,  twice 
over,  of  this  slippery  and  shallow  man.  The 
secretary  had  modestly  said  before  that  Mr.  Pitt 
might  have  acted  with  Mr.  Fox,  although 
subordinately.  They  changed  principles  as  they 
changed  situations.  There  is  always  a  thing  in 
England  called  an  opposition,  which  it  is  requisite 
that  I  should  mention,  for  it  has  now  become  so 
contemptible  as  scarcely  to  be  an  object  in  the 
public  eye.  The  principles  of  Mr.  Fox,  if  the 
expression  may  be  allowed,  and  it  be  conceded  that 
he  had  any,  were  violently  aristocratical  when 
he  was  in  office,  and  no  less  democratical  when  he 
was  out.  His  opponent  is  called  a  "  practical  lover 
of  arbitrary  power,  who  in  his  own  person  exercised 
it  too  long  for  the  glory  of  his  sovereign,  or  the 
happiness  of  his  people."^ 

*  Trotter  proceeds  :  "  The  one  (Pitt)  was  a  practical  lover  of  arbitrary 
power,  and  in  his  own  person  exercised  it  too  long  for  the  glory  of  his 
sovereign,  or  the  happiness  of  his  people  :  the  other  (Fox)  was  a  sincere 
friend  to  a  limited  monarchy,  which  is  the  only  species  of  government 
recognised  by  the  British  constitution,  was  a  benevolent  statesman 
of  the  first  order,  and  an  undaunted  advocate  for  liberty,  whether  civil 
rights,  or  freedom  of  conscience  were  concerned." 

'  See  last  note. 


80    THE   KING  AND   HIS  MINISTERS 

A  very  little  of  it  is  quite  enough  for  the  happi- 
ness of  a  people,  but  the  glory  of  our  sovereign  was 
not  tarnished  by  any  exercise  of  arbitrary  power. 
He  loved  the  bustle  and  dust  of  a  review/  and 
fancied  a  battle  was  quite  as  fine  a  thing.  It  was 
glorious  to  see,  worn  out  in  his  service,  veteran 
suits  of  laced  regimentals,  and  their  places  supplied 
with  alacrity  by  others  in  all  their  freshness  and 
strength.  These  were  his  foibles ;  they  led  to 
unhappy  results ;  but  he  was  a  virtuous,  kind,  just 
man.  In  reading  and  in  memory  (we  pass  by  Pitt) 
he  was  not  inferior  to  Mr.  Fox  ;  in  judgment  they 
were  too  equal.  He  was  uniformly  moral,  and  if 
not  always  dignified  he  knew  that  dignity  was 
more  requisite  in  the  second  place  than  in  the  first. 
Kings  are  commanding  by  their  condescension  and 
their  beneficence ;  ministers,  by  keeping  at  an  equal 
distance  from  the  people  and  from  the  King. 
Experience  and  wisdom  are  far  less  conducive 
to  the  permanency  of  their  power  than  a  temperate 
courtesy  and  a  sedate  reserve.  Those  who  excited 
the  American  war  were  guilty  of  high  treason; 
in  violating  the  liberty  of  the  subject,  and  in 
advising  the  sovereign  to  decline  the  redress  of 
grievances.  Some  of  these  are  yet  living;  and 
examples  of  justice  after  many  years  are  only  the 
more    important   and   the    more    awful.     Justice, 

^  "1  believe  your  King^"  Landor  makes  Benjamin  Franklin  say, 
''  to  be  as  honest  and  wise  a  man  as  those  about  him  ;  but,  unhappily, 
he  can  see  no  di£Ference  between  a  review  and  a  battle. " —  Works  iii.  374. 


VERY  LIMITED  MONARCHY       81 

when  a  nation  is  flourishing,  reposes,  but  never 
sleeps.  U'he  King  was  not  at  any  time  urgent  with 
his  parliament  to  make  encroachments  at  home  or 
abroad.  The  fault  was  totally  with  the  people : 
they  received,  and  returned  as  their  representatives, 
men  who  ought  to  have  been  sent  in  a  body  to  the 
hulks. 

Page  17. — "  The  other,  Mr.  Fox,  was  a  sincere 
friend  to  limited  monarchy." 

I  will  not  quarrel  with  an  old  expression,  from 
respect  to  its  very  feebleness.  I  believe  he  wished 
it,  in  general,  to  be  very  limited  indeed.  I  know, 
what  is  more  important,  that,  by  his  unsteadiness 
and  duplicity,  he  has  sanctioned  the  opinion  in 
many,  of  there  being  no  such  thing  in  existence  as 
political  honesty  ;  and  has  made  the  question  start, 
in  firmer  minds  than  his  own,  whether  all  govern- 
ments are  not  nearly  alike  when  viewed  closely ; 
whether  it  is  not  almost  a  matter  of  indifference 
which  be  abolished  or  which  be  established ; 
whether,  in  short,  whatever  is  best  administered  be 
not  best.^  One  could  hardly  imagine,  that  from  so 
turbulent  a  spirit^  there  should  descend  on  other 
men  the  political  optimism  of  Pope,  and  the 
political  quietism  of  Goldsmith.  It  is  true  that 
many  things   make   a    man    far   more   miserable, 

*  For  forms  of  government  let  fools  contest, 
Whate'er  is  best  administer'*!  is  best. 

Pope,  Essay  on  Man,  iii.  308. 

*  Bolingbroke. 

11 


82    THE  KING  AND   HIS   MINISTERS 

directly  and  individually,  than  forms  and  species  of 
government  can  do :  it  is  equally  so,  that  nothing 
makes  him  more  base,  and  ultimately  more 
wretched,  than  those  ideal  ones  which  he  pursues 
from  the  craft  and  imposture  of  demagogues. 
Under  monarchies  of  long  establishment,  there  is 
sometimes  an  exalted  and  chimerical  sense  of 
honour :  if  we  observe  it  less  frequently  in  popular 
Dr  mixt  governments,  it  is  because  the  people  have 
been  grossly  deceived  by  those  who  have  exalted 
and  flattered  them,  and  deceit  is  become,  in  their 
opinion,  a  constituent  part,  an  element  of  state,  or 
an  attribute  of  power  and  genius.  Confidence,  in 
the  mean  time,  by  degrees,  grows  cold  in  their 
rulers  and  in  each  other.  Every  man  now  begins 
to  seize  or  to  solicit  a  something  from  the  public, 
well  knowing  that  his  neighbour  cannot  openly 
condemn  in  him  what  is  committed  by  the 
members  and  sanctioned  by  the  head  of  his  own 
party.  Corruption  rises  higher  and  higher,  taxes 
are  imposed  that  its  channels  may  be  filled  to 
the  very  brim ;  until  at  last  those  unfortunate 
mortals,  who  considered  every  thing  they  saw  as 
an  indication  of  prosperity  and  abundance,  find 
themselves  circumvented  by  a  flood  in  their  own 
grounds,  which  they  neither  can  stem  nor  lower: 
competence  and  quiet  are  their  last  wishes,  and 
renovation  under  an  absolute  monarchy  their  only 
hope. 


A  CABINET  OF  DRY  STICKS       83 

Page  18. — "  Ministries  formed  of  repugnant  and 
conflicting  materials  cannot  be  permanent  or 
efficient." 

Yet  Mr.  Fox  chose,  twice,  to  be  a  member  of 
such  a  ministry.^ 

Page  18. — "[Every  department  ought  to  be 
filled  by  men  of  whom  the  statesman,  who  under- 
takes to  conduct  the  affairs  of  a  nation,  has  the 
selection,  and  on  whose  principles,  as  well  as 
talents,  he  can  rely.]  The  disorder  which  other- 
wise takes  place  from  the  counteraction  of  the 
inferior  servants  of  government,  is  of  the  worst 
kind,  paralysing  every  grand  measure  of  the  head  of 
the  ministry,  and  even  controuling  his  intentions." 

What  a  pretty  head  of  a  ministry  must  it  be, 
which  can  suffer  itself  to  be  counteracted  by  the 
inferior  servants  of  government !  but  to  be  con- 
irouled  by  them,  to  be  controuled  in  his  very 
intentions !  no  writer  could  ever  conceive  such  a 
notion,  unless  the  character  of  some  such  minister 
as  Mr.  Fox  were  before  his  eyes.  Was  Lord 
Chatham  controuled  or  counteracted  by  these 
inferior  servants  ?  He  found  indeed  opposition  in 
the  cabinet,  as  this  bundle  of  dry  sticks  is  called ; 
and,  like  a  passionate  man,  retired.^  He  should 
have  sent  his  opponents  to  the  Tower,  as  privy  to 

'  In  1783  and  1806. 

*  The  elder  Pitt  and  Temple  resigned  office  on  October  6,  1761,  on 
the  rejection  of  Pitt's  proposals  that  hostilities  should  be  commwced 
against  Spain. 


84    THE   KING  AND   HIS   MINISTERS 

the  machinations  of  the  Spanish  court,  and  refusing 
to  frustrate  them  ;  contrary  to  their  allegiance,  and 
to  their  oath  as  privy  counsellors. 

The  Spanish  war,  and  open  hostilities  from  the 
Spaniards,  would  have  commenced  before  it  would 
be  necessary  to  bring  forward  the  trial ;  the  nation 
would  have  applauded  his  vigilance,  would  have 
appointed  him  sole  arbiter  of  their  fates  and 
fortunes,  and  would,  even  to  this  day,  have 
experienced  the  beneficial  results  of  his  promp- 
titude and  energy.  The  French,  instead  of  a 
people  which  we  deprecate,  as  likely  "  to  eat  us  up 
quick,  being  so  despitefully  set  against  us,''  would 
have  lost  all  symptoms  of  so  formidable  an  appetite, 
would  have  been  no  people  at  aU,  would  have  fallen 
again  into  their  original  diversity  of  nations. 

Page  19. — "[The  great  genius  of  Mr.  Fox,  to 
have  been  efficient,  should  have  reigned  supreme  in 
the  management  of  public  affairs.  Mr.  Pitt,  under 
the  wholesome  restraints,  and  instructed  by  the 
enhghtened  mind  of  that  great  man,  might  have 
conducted  a  subordinate  department  with  benefit 
to  his  country  ;  but  as  to  co-operation  with  him,  on 
any  system  of  co-ordinate  power,  the  plan  must 
have  been  detrimental  to  the  public  service,  as  long 
as  it  was  attempted,  and  certainly  would  have  been 
degrading  to  Mr.  Fox.]  The  more  I  have  con- 
sidered, the  more  I  am  persuaded  that  his  own 
conception  of  retirement  was  the  true  rule  of 
conduct  to  follow." 


FAULTS   OF  A   COALITION         85 

Certainly,  when  he  had  had,  long  before,  the 
practical  proof  how  unpopular  and  how  inefficient 
were  coalitions.  In  what  country  have  they  ever 
succeeded  ?  In  what  country  have  they  ever  failed 
to  be  the  signal  of  its  subjugation?  The  trium- 
virate of  Rome  was  formed  in  the  days  of  its 
utmost  power  and  splendour,  when  the  republic 
was  in  possession  of  more  and  greater  talents  than 
ever,  when  a  spirit  of  public  liberty  on  one  side,  and 
a  reverence  for  establishments  on  the  other,  were 
the  sentiments  that  animated  the  senate  and  the 
people.  Yet  Rome  fell  under  the  coalition.  What 
then  could  be  expected  in  England  ?  Not  an 
individual  was  in  political  existence  in  whom 
posterity  will  see  anything  to  imitate  or  admire. 
The  national  spirit  was  gone ;  even  party  was 
indifferent  and  torpid.  We  appeared  to  be  at  the 
conclusion  of  some  great,  solemn  feast,  when  the 
mighty  host  and  illustrious  company  had  departed ; 
when  a  single  lamp  in  the  center  showed  the 
magnitude  of  the  hall  and  the  remains  of  tlie 
entertainment ;  and  when  a  few  of  the  favoured 
vulgar  had  been  admitted,  who  were  assailing  each 
other  with  coarse  jests  and  insolent  recriminations, 
and  spoiling,  and  pocketing,  and  buffeting  for  the 
fragments. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IRELAND  AND  THE   UNION 

Fox  and  Ireland — Character  of  the  Irish — Their  women  of  letters — 
Pitt's  Irish  policy — Political  peerages — Poland  and  Ireland — A 
point  of  difference — Fox's  peers — Lord  Howick — Catholic  emanci- 
pation— Religious  disabilities. 

Page  25. — "  [As  my  acquaintance  commenced 
with  Mr.  Fox  toward  the  evening  of  his  days,  and 
at  the  period  when  a  rebelhon  in  Ireland  was 
followed  by  what  has  been  fallaciously  styled  a 
Union,  I  had  the  opportunity  of  observing  his 
great  humanity,  and  his  freedom  from  prejudice, 
in  regard  to  that  country.  In  this  respect  he  ever 
seemed  to  me  to  stand  alone,  among  English  poli- 
ticians, many  of  whom  are  liberal  enough  in  their 
own  way,  but  all  of  whom  agree  in  a  love  of 
dominion,  and  in  a  certain  degree  of  contempt 
respecting  the  Irish,  which,  one  day  or  other,  will, 
I  fear,  generate  events  fatal  to  the  repose  of  both 
islands.]  There  is  no  nation  in  Europe,  perhaps, 
more  contracted  in  their  way  of  thinking,  or  less 
fit  to  establish  a  conciliatory  government,  than  the 
English." 

No  two  nations  in  Europe,  I  do  believe,  are  so 
utterly  dissimilar  as  the  English  and  Irish  ;  and, 
what  would  be  incredible  to  a  foreigner,  no  two 

86 


TRUE   IRISH   GENTLEMEN  87 

know  so  little  of  each  other.  Yet,  whatever  the 
government  may  do,  the  English  people  admire 
and  love  the  Irish,  although  in  general  we  see 
bad  specimens :  idlers,  gamesters,  and  fortune- 
hunters,  or  persons  who,  in  their  own  country, 
have  tried  indifferent  talents  unsuccessfully.  Men 
of  family  there  are  usually  very  courteous,  seldom 
very  well-informed,  never  very  correct  or  con- 
versant in  matters  of  literature  or  taste.  Contrary 
to  what  happens  everywhere  else,  the  middle 
rank  is  the  worst.  A  want  of  polite  literature 
is  suppUed  by  crude  extracts  from  Curran  and 
Grattan,  by  splinters  of  metaphor,  and  by  sentences 
half  truism  and  half  paradox.  Among  these, 
proofs  of  gentiHty  and  good  breeding  lie  in  a 
species  of  courage  which  is  common  to  a  cur ; 
a  readiness  to  attack,  and  an  impatience  to  be 
caught  or  corrected.  But  in  few  countries  are 
there  truer  gentlemen,  if  that  character  can  exist 
independent  of  high  cultivation,  and  unadorned 
by  the  fine  arts.  The  ladies  have  thro^vn  most 
lustre  upon  Ireland.  Miss  Brooke,^  Mrs.  O'Neill, 
Mrs.  Tighe,  Mrs.  Hamilton,  Miss  Edgeworth, 
have  lived,  I  believe,  mostly  in  that  country. 
Swift  and  Burke,  and  Sterne  and  Goldsmith,  were 
properly  English ;  for  if  we  speak  rationally  and 
worthily    of   mind,    we    are    to    trace    by    what 

'  Charlotte  Brooke,  died  1793,  published  Beliques  of  Irish  Poetry. 
Mrs.  Tighe  (Mary  Blackford)  wrote  Psyche  and  other  works.  Mrs. 
Hamilton  wrote  Memoirs  of  Agrippina  (1811). 


88        IRELAND   AND   THE   UNION 

methods  and  whence  it  drew  its  lineaments,  by 
what  associates  or  rivals  it  was  excited,  by  what 
absents  it  was  modified,  by  what  encouragements 
it  was  fostered.  Men  possessing  it  are  to  be 
looked  for  in  their  works  and  their  societies ;  not 
among  parish-registers  and  vestry-rooms. 

Page  25. — "  [Had  the  benevolent  and  enlarged 
mind  of  Mr.  Fox  directed  their  councils,  during 
the  twenty  years  preceding  his  death,  this  narrow 
system  would  not  have  prevailed,  but  Ireland 
might  have  been  really  united,  by  the  firm  bonds 
of  gratitude  and  interest,  to  Great  Britain.  The 
state  of  things  arising  in  Europe  required  the  most 
enlightened  and  improved  policy  in  English  states- 
men. The  coercive  energy  of  the  new  military 
government  in  France  was  alone  to  be  counter- 
poised, and  met,  on  the  part  of  these  islands,  by  a 
still  more  vigorous  spirit,  produced  by  the  conscious 
possession  of  civil  rights,  and  a  renovated  constitu- 
tion.] To  enter  the  lists  with  the  great  military 
chieftain  of  the  French,  without  similarity  of  means 
or  situation,  has  proved  a  want  of  knowledge  of 
England's  true  strength,"  ^  etc. 

Rome  had  not  the  same  situation  or  means  as 
Carthage,  yet  she  warred  against  Carthage,  and 
successfully.  No  knowledge  of  her  true  strength 
was  wanting.  It  is  because  our  means  and  situation 
are  different  from  those  of  France,  that  we  have 
not  suffered  more  from  her,  that  we  might  have 

•  The  sentence  ends  :  "rather  than  the  foresight  of  wisdom." 


SHALLOW   POLITICIANS  89 

suffered  less,  that  we  could  have  laid  nearly  all 
the  sufferings  on  her  side.  MiUtary  writers — I 
mean  writers  who  were  military  men — recommend 
a  diversity  of  weapons,  such  as  the  enemy  is  not 
expert  in,  or  prepared  for.  We  were  forced  "  to 
enter  the  Hsts  with  the  great  chieftain " :  the 
moment  we  leave  those  lists  we  shall  have 
nothing  to  which  we  can  return.  Horrible  as 
the  idea  is,  this  is  truly  a  bellum  internecinum, 
if  not  between  England  and  France,  between 
England  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  I  do  not 
deny  that  we  might  have  been  safe  at  peace  with 
him,  but  under  our  present  system  we  could  not. 
A  minister  will  find  it  as  difficult  to  abandon  as 
to  pursue.  It  must  crumble  to  pieces  of  itself; 
it  cannot  be  repaired  nor  taken  down.  The  super- 
structure is  extensive  and  cumbrous,  the  founda- 
tion narrow  and  weak.  Like  other  heavy  and 
disproportioned  bodies,  while  it  continues  in 
motion  it  keeps  together ;  the  instant  of  its  ces- 
sation is  that  of  its  dissolution.  Whether  good 
or  evil  is  the  probable  result,  it  were  more  curious 
than  prudent  to  inquire.  Weak  reasoners  and 
shallow  politicians,  to  whose  bounded  view  com- 
mercial distresses  appear  like  national  disabihties, 
let  them  be  aided  in  the  attempt  by  all  the  natural 
restlessness  of  men  left  naked  after  carousing, 
will  never  make  the  people  of  England  seek  an 

inglorious,     ignominious    security,    in     a    second 

12 


90        IRELAND  AND   THE   UNION 

reliance  on  so  perfidious  an  enemy.  Changes  of 
government  did  not,  amidst  all  the  turbulence 
of  the  French  nation,  promote  or  retard  its 
movements  against  the  coalesced  powers,  and  are 
likely  to  have  stiU  less  influence  on  us. 

Page  26. — "Mr.  Pitt  treated  Ireland  hke  a 
conquered  country."  ^ 

He  did  worse.  He  pensioned  and  ennobled  the 
vilest  rascals  of  every  province,  of  every  county, 
almost  of  every  town  and  hamlet.  Not  content 
with  this  indignity  and  insult,  fellows  in  whose 
family  there  never  was  a  gentleman,  a  scholar, 
or  decent  member  of  society,  were  sent  from 
England  into  their  house  of  lords.  How  many 
brave  men,  and  Irishmen  too,  had  fought  her 
battles  and  bled  for  her,  without  any  distinction 
bestowed  on  them  even  from  the  ribbon-shop, 
while  iniquitous  la^\yers  and  insolent  tradespeople 
received  the  highest  honours  of  the  state  !  While 
a  Nelson  was  Ungering  in  poverty,  and  soHciting 
only  those  hardships  and  sufferings  which  were 
to  work  out  the  salvation  of  his  country,  a  blanket- 
maker  and  the  bastard  of  a  scullion  were  ennobled. 
The  former  took  the  true  Irish  title  of  Cloncurry, 
the  latter  the  Arcadian  one  of  Riversdale.^     We 

*  Trotter  proceeds  ;  "  And  chose  to  build  upon  the  hollow  submission 
of  slaves,  rather  than  strengthen  himself  by  the  support  of  free  men." 

*  Robert  Lawless,  the  father  of  the  first  Lord  Cloncurry,  began  life 
as  an  errand-boy  in  the  shop  of  a  Dublin  woollen  draper.     His  son 


A  ROTTEN   ARISTOCRACY  91 

must  travel  into  the  wastes  of  Poland  to  find  so 
rotten  and  rude  an  image  of  aristocracy.  In 
addressing  a  foreigner  of  distinction,  I  could  not 
help  making  this  difference  :  in  Poland  every  thing 
was  noble  that  was  not  a  slave,  in  Ireland  every 
thing  that  was}  Is  it  then  aristocratical  pride 
of  which  Mr.  Pitt  is  to  be  accused  ?  What 
democrat,  however  rancorous  and  malicious,  could 
more  effectually  debase  nobility?  But  these  up- 
starts who  were  ushered  into  the  Irish  house 
of  lords  were  very  rich.  Many  people  would 
willingly  be  very  rich,  without  a  premium  for 
the  trouble  of  being  so.  Here  I  may,  and  do 
most  gladly,  commend  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Fox. 
He  raised  men  of  ancient  or  distinguished  family 
to  the  peerage  ;  a  thing  which  is  never  invidious 
even  to  those  who  possess  not  that  advantage. 
This  alone  proves  how  great  the  difference  is,  in 
the  public  estimation,  between  those  who  have 
scraped  up  money  from  all  quarters,  and  those 
whose  consequence  has  a  local  habitation  and  a 
name  ;  who  are  conspicuous  in  the  country ;  whose 
families  are  seen  somewhat  separate  from  others, 

Nicholas  was  created  a  baronet  in  1776^  and  a  peer  in  1789.  In  1799 
he  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Portland  :  "  If  I  have  obtained  any  honours 
they  have  cost  me  their  full  value."  Colonel  William  Hull,  who  took 
the  name  of  Tonson,  was  created  Baron  Riversdale  in  1783.  This 
peerage  is  extinct. 

'  The  same  remark  is  made  in  Landor's  imaginary  conversation 
(never  reprinted)  between  Lord  Mountjoy  (afterwards  Earl  of  Blessing- 
ton)  and  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald. — See  Madden's  Lady  Blessington, 
ii.  426. 


92        IRELAND   AND   THE   UNION 

and  remembered  individually ;  who  set  examples 
of  agricultural  improvement ;  who  promote  healthy 
industry  and  honest  independence,  cleanUness  and 
comfort,  competence  and  sobriety.  A  great  leader 
in  the  cause  of  parliamentary  reform,  until  he 
became  one  who  might  have  promoted  it, 
abandoned  so  far  the  errors  of  democracy,  that, 
when  he  was  appointed  first  lord  of  the  admiralty,^ 
and  old  captains  of  the  navy  waited  on  him,  he 
would  not  invite  them  or  permit  them  to  be 
seated.  This  is  a  piece  of  impudence  and  hardness 
of  heart  (ever  inseparable  !)  to  be  credited  only 
by  those  who  know  the  man.  How  different 
from  the  urbanity,  and  right  feeUng,  in  social  life, 
of  Mr.  Fox ! 

Pages  26-7. — "[1  can  truly  testify  that  in  the 
shocking  times  of  1798,  and  during  the  degrading 
scene  which  crowned  them,  Mr.  Fox  yearned  over 
Irish  misfortunes  with  a  truly  paternal  heart.  .  .  . 
I  distinctly  recollect  the  horror  excited  in  him,  on 
hearing  of  the  burning  of  cottages  and  their  furni- 
ture by  the  military,  and  the  pain  he  felt  on  reading 
the  accounts  of  the  actions  between  the  insurgents 
and  the  army.  How  well  I  remember  the  valu- 
able cautions  he  gave  me,  when  the  acuteness  of 
my  feelings  for  a  suffering  country  prompted  hasty 
and  momentary  expressions  of  anguish !  His 
opinion,  which  is  given  in  one  of  the  letters 
annexed  to    this   volume,   when   the   Union   was 

'  This  must  refer  to  Lord  Howick,  afterwards  Earl  Grey,  First  Lord 
of  the  Admiralty  in  the  Ministry  of  all  the  Talents. 


CATHOLIC  EMANCIPATION         93 

agitated  in  Ireland,  will  be  found  solid  and 
important.]  I  do  not  take  upon  me  to  assert  that 
his  opinion  went  so  far  as  to  imply  the  re-admission 
of  Catholics  to  the  parliament  of  their  country." 

Yet  his  opinion  went  so  far  as  to  countenance 
a  revolt,  if  they  found  themselves  strong  enough, 
on  withholding  from  them  their  natural  and  just 
rights.  Is  a  man  unfit  for  jurisprudence  or  tactics, 
because  he  believes  what  those  forefathers  of  ours 
beheved,  who  framed  for  us  whatever  is  most 
valuable  in  our  constitution,  and  acquired  for  us 
that  glory  and  renown  in  war,  and  nourished  and 
disciplined  us  to  that  prowess,  without  which  a 
set  of  commissaries  and  contractors  and  shop- 
keepers must  have  debated  somewhere  else  whether 
the  descendants  of  these  brave  men  should  be 
permitted  to  utter  their  sentiments  in  parliament  ? 
Are  the  debates  in  that  house  likely  to  be  about 
no  other  matters  than  religion  ?  and  if  Catholics 
think  erroneously  on  that  subject,  must  they  think 
erroneously  on  all?  But  whether  on  this  or  any 
other,  what  danger  is  there  that  they  will  constitute 
a  majority? 


CHAPTER  V 

VISIT  TO  THE  CONTINENT 

Fox  as  a  historian — Compared  with  Sallust — Fox's  visit  to  France — The 
lessons  of  history — Fox  and  Bonaparte — Voltaire  on  Machiavelli — 
An  incident  at  Calais — Arthur  O'Connor — Sir  Francis  Burdett — 
In  Flanders — Empress  Catharine  of  Russia — The  tree  of  Liberty — 
Rights  of  man. 

[^Page  29. — "  The  peace,  or  rather  the  truce,  of 
Amiens,  in  1802,  very  naturally  excited  in  Mr.  Fox 
a  desire  to  visit  the  Continent.  His  historical  work 
had  advanced  a  good  way,  but,  as  he  approached 
the  reign  of  James  II.,  he  felt  a  want  of  mate- 
rials which  he  understood  could  alone  be  supplied 
in  Paris,  and  he  determined  to  go  there.  That 
work  has  since  appeared,  and  the  public  have 
formed  their  opinion  upon  it.  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  it  would  have  been  desirable  that  he 
had  gone  further  back,  or  chosen  a  larger  period, 
and  one  unconnected  even  by  analogy  with  modern 
politics.  An  involuntary  association  of  ideas  and 
feelings  .  .  .  may  have  had  an  influence,  unsus- 
pected by  the  author,  and  have  led  to  his  dwelling, 
as  it  has  appeared  to  some,  with  prolixity  upon 
peculiar  passages  in  the  unhappy  reigns  of  Charles 
and  James."] 

Page  30. — "  The  goodness  of  his  heart  and 
the  grandeur  of  his  mind,  the  just  medium  of  his 
opinions  between  the  crown  and  democracy,  and 

94 


SALLUST   AND   MR.   FOX  95 

his  warm  love  of  true  and  rational  liberty  are, 
however,  indelibly  recorded  in  a  work  which  per- 
haps came  out  too  soon  after  his  death  to  be  justly 
appreciated." 

The  histories  of  Sallust  and  Livy  came  out  before 
the  death  of  their  authors,  and  at  a  time  when 
party  was  more  violent,  leaders  more  powerful, 
and  changes  more  stupendous,  than  we  have  wit- 
nessed in  our  country ;  yet  the  productions  of 
these  men  were  appreciated  in  their  times  as  easily 
and  highly  as  in  ours.  If  we  except  a  pristine 
vigour  of  style,  a  masterly  and  rapid  delineation 
of  character,  a  display  of  eloquence,  like  the 
annona^  given  to  the  Roman  people,  magnificent 
but  unostentatious ;  and,  instead  of  all  this,  bring 
before  us  a  man  complaining  of  degeneracy, 
luxury,  intemperance,  immodesty,  and  gaming, 
and  of  corruption  flowing  into  public  life  from 
all  these  separate  channels,  and  presently  see  him 
rioting  or  reposing  on  every  one  successively,  we 
shall  discover  no  obscure,  or  faint,  or  partial  re- 
semblance between  Sallust  and  Mr.  Fox.  Sallust, 
of  all  the  Romans,  is  the  one  who  impresses  me 
most  with  the  idea  of  a  great  genius.  Undoubtedly 
his  work  was  laboured,  but  we  cannot  discover 
in  it  the  separate  strokes  of  labour.  He  is  said 
to  have  affected   an   antiquity    of   phrase,   more 

*  The  corn  and  other  provisions  sold  at  a  cheap  rate  to  the  poor  in 
the  latter  days  of  the  Roman  republic,  and  given  freely  under  the 
emperors. 


96         VISIT   TO   THE   CONTINENT 

probably  of  orthography ;  but  his  language  has 
all  that  harmony  which  predominant  sense  strikes 
out.  I  could  as  easily  find  it  in  the  verses  of 
Racine  as  in  the  history  of  Mr.  Fox.  Sallust 
was  very  impartial.  It  is  owing  to  him  that  in 
schools  and  colleges  Cato  is  not  merely  the  rival, 
but  the  superior  of  Csesar.  He  appears  to  equal 
him  in  eloquence,  and  to  surpass  him  in  dignity. 
We  may  leave  to  Cato  all  of  his  integrity ;  but 
in  literary,  in  political,  in  military  resources,  in 
forbearance,  in  clemency,  and  I  think  also  in  the 
justice  of  his  cause,  Sallust  might  fairly  have 
represented  him  as  secondary  to  Csesar.  Mr.  Fox 
falls  infinitely  short  of  that  impartiality.  That 
Charles,  who  sold  his  country  to  the  French  king, 
descended  to  the  grave  without  first  mounting 
the  scaffold,  is  an  eternal  reproach  to  the  English 
name  ;  but  it  is  no  reproach  to  Charles  that  he 
ordered  those  who  attempted  it  to  execution.^ 

Pages  30-31. — "  [I  was  wandering  among  the 
beauties  of  North  Wales,  when  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Fox  reached  me,  stating  his  intention  of 
going  to  France,  in  furtherance  of  his  historical 
work,  and  adding  that  I  could  be  of  use  in  copy- 
ing for  him  in  Paris.  .  .  .  The  friendly  eye  which 
had  penetrated  these  recesses  and  the  hand  which  had 

^  Of  Charles  II.  Fox  wrote  :  ''  I  doubt  whether  a  single  instance  can 
be  produced  of  his  having  spared  the  life  of  any  whom  motives^  either 
of  policy  or  revenge,  prompted  him  to  destroy." — Reign  of  James  II., 
p.  62. 


A  REGENERATED   FRANCE         97 

beckoned  me  to  leave  these  calm  and  rural  haunts, 
to  behold  a  new  order  of  things  in  the  powerful 
kingdom  of  France,  were  recognised  by  me  as 
heralds  of  friendship  and  beneficence ;  but  his 
active  benevolence  manifested  on  this  occasion 
filled  me  with  grateful  surprise.  Reader,  such  a 
character  was  Mr.  Fox !]  To  raise  up  the  neglected, 
and  aid  those  whom  scanty  means  might  keep 
pining  at  home,  or  languishing  in  obscurity,  was 
his  bright  characteristic." 

What  latent  talents  did  he  bring  forward  ?  The 
least  he  could  do  was  to  have  taken  care  that  those 
who  lay  three  in  a  bed  ^  should  have  been  tolerably 
clean,  but  he  took  no  care  about  that  matter. 

Page  36. — "  [As  the  packet  passed  through  the 
glittering  waves  with  a  brisk  and  easy  motion, 
my  mind  was  suspended,  as  it  were,  between  various 
sensations  and  ideas.  We  had  left  the  proud  coast 
of  Albion  to  visit  the  regenerated  kingdom  of 
France.  The  long-enjoyed  power  of  the  Bourbons 
had  vanished  before  the  irresistible  course  of  events.] 
We  were  about  to  change  our  imaginations  and 
opinions  for  certain  ideas  ;  we  were  to  judge  for 
ourselves,  and,  disencumbering  our  minds  of  the 
false  impression  unavoidably  made  on  those  distant 
from  the  theatre  of  a  great  revolution,  we  were  to 
be  enabled  to  form  a  just  opinion  of  effects,  and 
to  examine  and  analyse  causes  [in  the  political  or 
moral  sphere  of  men,  or,  as  I  may  now  express  it, 
of  Imperial  France.^]  " 

^  See  footnote,  p.  63. 

*  Trotter  is  describing  the  journey  of  Mr.  Fox  and  himself  to  France 
in  the  summer  of  1802. 

13 


98         VISIT   TO   THE   CONTINENT 

Here  are  so  many  words  that  I  cannot  get  into 
the  middle  of  them  or  see  through  them  in  any 
way.  What  certain  ideas  did  Mr.  Fox  or  his 
party  give  in  exchange  for  their  imaginations 
and  opinions  ?  These,  it  appears,  were  to  be 
exchanged  for  something,  and  I  can  easily  think 
any  thing  an  equivalent.  Did  they  not  judge 
for  themselves  before  ?  and  for  the  people,  too  ? 
But  they  were  aware,  it  comes  out,  that  they  still 
had  to  disencumber  their  minds  of  false  impres- 
sions. "To  analyse  causes"  was  beyond  their 
power ;  but  to  "  form  a  just  opinion  of  effects " 
was  certainly  much  wanting  to  Mr.  Fox,  who  had 
reasoned  wrong  on  them  in  every  period  of  the 
revolution. 

Page  38. — "  [.  .  .  Mr.  Fox's  feelings  respecting 
Bonaparte.  Raised  himself,  as  I  think,  upon  a 
greater  eminence,  he  could  not,  as  I  did,  look  with 
the  same  astonishment  at  the  stupendous  character 
of  that  great  man  ;  but  he  could  not  be  devoid  of  a 
desire,  common  to  us  all,  of  seeing  and  hearing  one 
of  the  most  eminent  persons  of  the  age.]  He,  to 
whom  the  histories  of  Greece  and  Rome  were  so 
familiar,  looked  with  a  philosophic  eye  upon  his 
(Bonaparte's)  exaltation." 

It  is  a  pity  that  men  to  whom  these  histories 
are  so  familiar  should  read  them  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  improve  their  knowledge  of  the 
language,    or    to    amuse    them,    rather    than  to 


AUTHORS   AND   THE   STATE        99 

instruct  them,  in  the  difficulties  of  state.  How 
little  advantage  has  been  derived  to  Mr.  Pitt  and 
Mr.  Fox  from  the  experience  of  past  ages  I  Mr. 
Pitt/  indeed,  had  as  profound  a  contempt  for 
literature  and  literary  men  as  ever  was  avowed 
or  felt  by  Attila  and  Totila ;  but  Mr.  Fox  was  a 
man  of  extensive  and  not  superficial  reading,  and, 
on  many  occasions,  of  serious  and  of  deep  reflec- 
tions. The  historians  of  Greece  and  Rome  present 
to  us  almost  every  possible  contingency,  a  narrative 
of  almost  every  experiment,  and  a  statement  of 
every  result.  It  requires  too  large  a  portion  of 
human  life  for  a  person  of  active  and  official 
employment  to  examine  into  and  deliberate  on 
all :  a  man  of  sagacity,  not  even  equalled  by  any 
of  these  great  writers,  has  detailed  them  all,  most 
clearly  and  completely.  Mr.  Fox  was  a  lover,  it 
is  said,  of  Italian  literature " ;  and  surely  no  man 
of  letters  could  read  with  haste  or  indiffisrence 
the  works  of  MachiaveUi.  His  two  comedies, 
highly  praised  by  Voltaire,^  I   pass   over  as  very 

•  Speaking  of  William  Pitt,  Mr.  Lecky  says :  "  In  the  disposal  of 
his  vast  and  varied  patronage,  no  minister  showed  himself  more 
perfectly  and  uniformly  indifferent  to  the  interests  of  science  and 
literature."  The  same  writer  describes  Pitt  as  ** quite  without  Fox's 
power  of  casting  off  the  ambitions  of  politics,  and  finding  in  books  a 
sufficient  aliment  for  his  nature." — History  of  England,  v.  347-8. 

*  "  For  God's  sake,"  Fox  wrote  to  FitzPatrick  from  Horence,  on 
September  22,  1767,  "  learn  Italian  as  fast  as  you  can,  if  it  be  only  to 
read  Ariosto." 

'  "  Few  have  hesitated,"  says  Hallam,  "  to  place  Machiavelli's  Man- 
dragola  and  Clitia  above  Ariosto's  comedies." — Literary  History,  i.  439. 
Macaulay  thought  the  Mandragola  inferior  only  to  the  best  of  Moliere. 


J  00       VISIT  TO  THE   CONTINENT 

vile  productions,  and  find  little  to  commend  in 
the  life  of  Castruccio  Castracani.  I  never  smiled 
at  the  witty  things  attributed  to  him,  and  attri- 
buted to  others  long  before  ;  but  surely  The 
Commentary  on  Livij  and  The  Prince  are  the 
two  most  valuable  gifts  a  mortal  ever  bestowed 
on  his  fellow- creatures.  If  you  will  surrender 
your  rights  and  liberties,  look  into  these  books, 
and  you  will  see  the  consequences.  A  prince,  to 
fulfil  his  destinies,  must  pursue  this  line  of  con- 
duct. The  cases  and  changes  which  may  occur, 
and  influence  the  fate  of  nations,  are,  in  my 
opinion,  quite  as  worthy  of  our  study  as  those 
which  are  propounded  by  Hoyle  for  the  game  of 
whist.  Ministers  of  a  great  nation  should  be 
chosen  neither  drowsy  from  the  gaming-houses 
nor  fresh  from  the  university.  The  historian  of 
Florence  was  not  only  a  speculative  politician, 
but  he  wrote  also  on  the  practice  and  stratagems 
of  war.  He  first,  amongst  the  moderns,  recom- 
mended the  general  use  of  infantry,  and  pointed 
out  its  superiority  to  cavalry.  Most  of  his  remarks 
on  these  subjects  are  borrowed  from  the  ancients : 
the  Chevalier  de  Folard,^  in  criticising  him,  should 

Voltaire  said  :  "La  seule  Mandragore  de  Machiavel  vaut  peut-etre 
mieux  que  toutes  les  pieces  d'Aristophane." — (Euvres,  1785,  xviii.  99. 
Landor,  in  his  Imaginary  Conversations,  makes  Alfieri  say :  "  The 
great  Machiavelli  is,  whatever  M.  de  Voltaire  may  assert  to  the 
contrary,  a  coarse  comedian." — Works,  iv.  272. 

'  Landor  wrote,    in  his  Letters  to  Lord  Liverpool :  ''  An   attentive 
perusal  and  a  right  understanding  of  two  excellent  books  have  enabled 


BONAPARTE'S   TUTORS  101 

have  remembered  this,  as  also  the  use  of  the  pike, 
which  he  strenuously  advises.  The  Chevalier 
himself  has  recommended  these  after  him,  and 
places  a  higher  value  on  the  skill,  and  arms,  and 
military  machines  of  the  Romans  than  on  those 
of  modern  war.  Bonaparte  has  made  himself 
emperor  by  following  their  maxims.  The  right 
use  of  a  sensible  book  has  produced  the  conquest 
of  Europe.  We  English  seem  to  have  abandoned 
all  stratagems  and  expedients :  we  try  nothing 
new  but  strings  and  tassels ;  we  recur  to  nothing 
old  but  whiskers. 

[Page  40. — "An  incident  occurred  at  Calais, 
which,  as  it  excited  much  remark,  and  roused  a 
good  deal  of  censure  at  the  time,  I  shall  advert  to 
more  at  length  than  would  otherwise  be  necessary. 
It  happened  that  Mr.  Arthur  O'Connor^  had 
arrived  at  the  inn  at  which  we  stopped.  .  .  .  He 
waited  on  Mr.  Fox,  was  received  by  him  with  that 

a  petty  officer  of  artillery  [Bonaparte]  to  confound  all  the  wisdom  and 
baffle  all  the  energies  of  the  world.  The  Prince  of  Machiavelli^  and 
the  translation  of  Polybius  by  Folard,  are  the  cup  and  wand  of  this 
Comus,"  p.  71.  The  Chevalier  de  Folard's  Commentary  on  Polybius  is 
printed  in  the  seventh  volume  of  a  translation  of  Polybius  (Amsterdam, 
1753),  made  by  V.  Thuillier,  a  kinsman,  probably,  of  Landor's  father- 
in-law.  M.  de  Folard  served  with  distinction  in  the  French  army,  and 
died  in  1762.  Gibbon  says  he  treated  the  subject  of  ancient  machines 
with  great  knowledge  and  ingenuity  {Decline  and  Fall,  i.  162  n.). 

'  Arthur  O'Connor,  Irish  patriot,  was  tried  at  Maidstone,  in  May, 
1798,  on  a  charge  of  high  treason,  along  with  James  O'Coighy  and 
others.  Fox,  Lord  Moira,  and  Sheridan  were  among  the  witnesses 
called  for  the  defence.  O'Connor  was  acquitted,  but  remanded  to 
custody  on  other  charges.  He  was  afterwards  allowed  to  leave  the 
country,  on  disclosing  his  plans,  and  went  to  France,  where  he  married 
a  daughter  of  Condorcet. 


102       VISIT  TO   THE   CONTINENT 

urbanity  and  openness  which  distinguished  him, 
and  was  invited  to  dinner  by  him,  which  invitation 
he  accepted  of.  I  had  never  seen  this  gentleman 
before.  It  is  well  known  that,  after  a  long  con- 
finement at  Fort  George,  he,  and  some  other  Irish 
gentlemen,  agreed  with  the  Irish  Government  to 
expatriate  themselves  for  life.  Mr.  O'Connor  was 
now  on  his  way  to  Paris  accordingly,  when  chance 
brought  him  to  Quillac's  inn,  at  the  same  time 
with  Mr.  Fox."] 

Page  41. — "  [Perfectly  unconnected  with  govern- 
ment, and  travelling  as  any  other  English  gentle- 
man of  noble  birth,  Mr.  Fox  found  no  difficulty  in 
receiving  this  gentleman  (whom  he  had  known 
before  he  was  so  deeply  implicated  in  Irish  politics) 
with  a  friendly  and  consoling  welcome.]  Mr. 
O'Connor  dined  with  us  [and  I,  for  one,  was  much 
pleased  with  his  deportment  and  appearance, 
though]  I  could  not  become,  in  a  manner,  a 
convert  to  his  arguments  to  prove  that  he  and  his 
party  had  not  attempted  [or  desired]  to  rouse  the 
physical  strength  of  his  country,  to  effect  a  change 
in  Ireland." 

In  what  manner  not  become  a  convert  to  the 
arguments  ?  What  arguments  were  necessary  ? 
Did  he  deny  the  fact  ?  Who  can  hesitate  to 
beUeve  that  he  did  desire  to  raise  the  physical 
and  every  other  strength  of  the  country  to  effect 
a  change  in  Ireland  ?  Can  any  honest  man  blame 
him,  if,  when  all  other  means  had  first  been  tried, 
he  tried  the  courage  and  constancy  of  the  people 
to  effect  a  change  ?     Were  not  rights  withholden 


SIR   FRANCIS   BURDETT  103 

from  Irishmen,  as  precious  to  them  as  those  which, 
being  withholden  from  the  Americans,  roused  their 
physical  strength,  the  exertion  of  which  was 
applauded  by  Mr.  Fox  ?  What  defence  then  is 
necessary  to  this  gentleman,  if  he  received  a  former 
friend  who  suffered  for  principles  like  his  own? 
It  required  no  dignity  or  benevolence  to  act  as 
he  did ;  to  have  acted  otherwise  would,  to  him 
at  least,  have  been  extremely  base,  a  species  too 
of  baseness  very  uncongenial  with  his  character. 
It  would  have  been  a  kind  and  a  degree  of  un- 
manliness  to  be  found  only  under  the  frozen 
temperature  of  such  a  soul  as  Pitt's. 

Page  43. — "[A  recent  speech  of  a  celebrated 
baronet  has  recalled  to  my  mind  what  we  heard 
either  at  Calais,  or  some  other  French  town, 
relative  to  Sir  Francis  Burdett.]  It  had  been 
reported  to  us  that  Sir  Francis,  on  landing  at 
Calais,  had  been  designated,  with  a  design  to  flatter 
him,  as  the  friend  of  Mr.  Fox,  and  that  he  had 
turned  round  and  instantly  corrected  the  expression, 
by  saying  '  No,  that  he  was  Vami  du  peuple.' " 

Sir  Francis  Burdett  is  not  censurable  for  choosing 
to  rest  his  claim  to  respectability  on  his  own  basis. 
Mr.  Fox  and  Sir  Francis  might  have  been  friends, 
and  yet  Sir  Francis  might  prefer  some  other 
designation  than  merely  the  friend  of  Charles  Fox. 

Page  43. — ["The  baronet  in  a  late  speech  has 
said  :  '  he  is  not  the  friend  of  Caesar  or  of  Pompey, 


104       VISIT   TO   THE  CONTINENT 

but  the  friend  of  the  people.'  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  meeting  him  at  St.  Anne's  Hill,  before  he  had 
attained  any  of  his  subsequent  celebrity.  I  then 
thought  him  pleasing,  though  tinged  with  vanity, 
which,  perhaps,  in  the  society  of  Mr.  Fox,  was 
more  peculiarly  conspicuous,  because  the  powerful 
lustre  of  his  great,  yet  unassuming  character 
rendered  the  tinsel  glare  of  any  superficial  pre- 
tensions strikingly  obvious.  ...  I  own  that  when 
I  heard  this  'disclaimer'  at  Calais,  I  was  not  led 
to  entertain  a  more  elevated  idea  of  Sir  Francis 
Burdett's  character  than  I  had  originally 
conceived."] 

Page  45. — "  [Was  not  Fox  an  honourable  and 
dignified  friend,  worthy  of  being  assigned  to  Sir 
Francis  Burdett  ?]  Did  it  become  him  to  turn  and 
disclaim  the  title,  in  order  to  assume  the  far  less 
solid  glory  of  Vami  du  peuple  ?  " 

So  then  at  last  the  naked  and  unblushing  truth 
comes  forth,  that  the  partizans  of  Mr.  Charles  Fox 
are  strictly  and  exclusively  his,  and  would  rather 
both  be  thought  and  be  so,  than  defend  the 
liberties  of  their  country.  A  great  deal  more  is 
said  about  Sir  Francis  Burdett,  of  his  vanity,  his 
tinsel  glare,  etc.  I  have  seen  this  gentleman,  not 
among  mobs,  nor  at  public  dinners,  but  in  the 
society  of  his  friends,  and  I  observed  no  tinsel  or 
vanity  ;  yet  these  are  sooner  seen  than  any  thing 
else  about  a  man.  I  have  mentioned  what  I  saw ; 
I  think  it  just,  and  have  neither  the  leisure  nor  the 
inclination  to  say,  or  to  know,  more  of  him. 


RUSSIA   AND   THE   TURKS         105 

Page  51. — "[On  entering  that  part  of  modern 
France,  so  well  known  by  the  appellation  of  the 
Netherlands,  the  glorious  scene  of  human  pros- 
perity, and  of  rural  happiness  and  plenty  which 
opened  before  our  delighted  eyes,  was  a  true  feast 
to  the  mind.]  Flanders  had  long  enjoyed  a  liberal 
portion  of  rational  liberty." ' 

It  was  necessary  that  she  should,  otherwise  she 
would  sooner  have  swerved  to  the  side  of  France. 
But  no  policy  is  sufficient  to  countervail  the  grasp- 
ing disposition  of  despotism.  Perpetual  attempts 
had  been  made  to  strip  little  after  little  from  her 
immunities.^  Joseph,  like  Catharine  of  Russia, 
was  a  silly  and  restless  meddler,  eternally  shifting 
and  transplanting.  Catharine  might,  on  several 
occasions,  have  utterly  destroyed  the  power  of 
Turkey.  But  at  one  time  a  mere  intrigue  occu- 
pied her ;  at  another  she  was  driving  a  part  of 
her  subjects  from  their  country  and  bringing 
another  into  it,  or  was  quelling  a  revolt  which 
such  cabinet  arrangements  had  excited,  or  her 
armies  were  pursuing  those  who  took  refuge  in 
Tartary  and  China  from  her  maternal  solicitude. 
Instead   of  these  tricks  and  finesses,  she   should 

'  Trotter  proceeds  :  "  Its  independence,  sanctioned  and  guaranteed 
by  so  many  imperial  sovereigns,  had,  until  the  reign  of  the  visionary 
despot,  Joseph  II.,  given  it  all  the  just  fruits  of  liberty,  peace, 
abundance,  and  security." 

*  "  The  dismantling  of  fortresses,  which  took  place  through  the 
policy  of  Joseph  II.,  had,  some  years  later  [after  1795],  a  considerable 
effect  in  rendering  the  conquest  of  the  Netherlands  easy  and  rapid. " — 
Leoky,  History  of  England,  v.  355. 

14 


106       VISIT  TO  THE   CONTINENT 

have  driven  at  once  the  brute  force  of  her  empire 
against  the  most  powerful  of  her  enemies ;  the 
less  would  be  engulfed  by  the  shock,  and  she 
might  have  picked  up  afterwards  a  thousand  very 
valuable  things,  which  would  have  been  shivered 
in  all  directions  by  the  general  consternation. 

[Pages  51,  52. — "  As  we  approached  St.  Omer's, 
the  difference  between  two  very  distinct  races  of 
men  became  very  perceptible  ;  and,  after  passing  it, 
the  gradation  from  French  to  Flemish  was  quickly 
lost  in  the  latter.  A  larger  bodily  form,  a  manifest 
deficiency  in  grace,  less  intellect,  but  more  plain 
sense,  the  dress  inelegant  and  cumbrous — marked 
the  Flemings.  As  yet  1  had  seen  but  little  of  the 
French  ;  but  already  their  gracefulness,  politeness, 
and  the  general  elegance  of  their  forms,  had  pre- 
possessed me  in  their  favour."] 

Page  52. — "The  general  elegance  of  their  forms." 
No  nation  in  Europe  is  generally  so  ugly  as  the 
French,  both  in  form  and  features.  Such  is  the 
involuntary  exclamation  of  every  man  who  passes 
out  of  Kent  into  Picardy.  Mr.  Fox  could  see,  and 
could  teach  others  to  see,  something  more  than 
commonly  pleasing  in  every  thing  like  French. 

[Pages  61-3. — "  On  leaving  Cassel  this  day, 
I  began  Joseph  Andi^ews.  Mr.  Fox  was  much 
amused  by  our  book  ;  and  though  we  all  subse- 
quently agreed  as  to  the  vulgarity — a  little  too 
prevalent  in  Fielding's  novels — yet  his  faithful  and 
admirable  paintings  from  human  nature  afforded  us 
great  pleasure.  .  .  .  We  rattled  along  in  a  very 


A  FADED   TREE   OF  LIBERTY    107 

pleasant  manner,  going  through  Billeul,  an  ugly- 
town,  and  some  other  country  towns,  and,  with 
the  help  of  Joseph  Andrews,  found  not  a  weary 
moment.  In  most  of  these  towns  I  observed  the 
tree  of  liberty  planted  and  growing.  This  memorial 
of  the  fury  of  late  events  recalled  many  unpleasant 
ideas.  ...  In  most  places  the  tree  of  liberty, 
though  undisturbed,  looked  sickly,  and,  as  I  cast 
a  glance  on  its  fading  leaves,  I  could  not  but  think 
of  the  sublime  apostrophe  made  to  liberty,  in  her 
last  agonies,  by  one  of  the  very  brightest  of  France's 
ornaments,  in  her  revolutionary  days — Madame 
Roland.  Yet  the  excesses  into  which  the  French 
were  driven  are  not  less  entitled  to  pity  than  to 
blame."] 

Page  64. — "  The  exasperation  of  the  multitude 
seldom  exceeds  the  boundaries  of  law  and  order,  till 
they  feel  that  their  complaints  are  unavailing,"  etc. 

This  ought  to  have  come  into  the  author's  mind 
when  he  was  writing  of  O'Connor,  and  of  the 
events  in  which  he  bore  a  part. 

Page  64. — "  [Yet  the  faded  tree  of  liberty  filled 
me  with  sorrow.  I  sighed  over  the  inevitable 
result  of  the  revolution  in  France,  arising  from  the 
preponderance  of  bad  men  and  turbulent  factions.] 
The  tree  is  faded,  thought  I,  but  the  rights  of 
man  will  endure  for  ever." 

So  there  will  always  exist  in  the  human  mind 
the  ideas  of  truth  and  equity,  but  we  want  to 
see  truth  and  equity  in  some  other  places.  Their 
being  in  the  human  mind  and  their  not  being 


108       VISIT   TO   THE   CONTINENT 

found  elsewhere  is  the  mischief.  We  desire  to 
see  them  moving  about,  gaining  strength,  doing 
and  communicating  good.  There  is  no  nation  in 
Europe  which  has  not  surrendered  a  great  portion 
of  its  rights  except  the  Spanish,  and  that  nation 
has  lost  much  of  the  territory  over  which  those 
rights  should  have  extended.  For  the  recent 
avowal  of  her  principles  she  will  soon,  under 
some  pretext  or  other,  be  abandoned  by  our 
government,  which  gains  nothing  by  experience 
but  hatred  of  it,  and  brings  nothing  to  liberty 
but  regret. 

Page  64. — "  Dynasties  may  be  erected,  generals 
become  monarchs,  the  people  be  depressed,  but 
liberty  is  enthroned  in  the  heart  of  man,  is  the 
boon  of  his  Creator,  and  the  cloudless  jewel  of  life." 

Mighty  fine  and  precious  is  this  cloudless  jewel, 
if  kings  can  pull  it  out  of  our  bosoms,  or  cheat 
us,  like  ring-droppers  in  the  streets,  with  some- 
thing base  and  worthless  instead.  Liberty,  to 
use  a  homelier  phrase,  is  a  thing  which  people 
may  be  so  long  without  as  to  lose  all  appetite 
for  it.  This  "throne  of  the  human  heart,"  on 
which  the  secretary  has  personified  and  in- 
augurated it,  is  often  abdicated.  Some  prefer  a 
tangible  pension  to  what  they  consider  as  an 
imaginary  being  at  the  best ;  others,  who  have 
contemplated  her  more  nearly,  have  been  induced 
by  the   conduct   of  such   people  as   Mr.  Fox  to 


THE   PEACE   TO   COME  109 

forego  the  trouble  and  peril  of  quarrelling  about 
her  infidelities.  It  is  better,  or  rather  it  is  less 
disgraceful,  to  resign  a  thing  than  to  be  tricked 
out  of  it.  This  sentiment  is  natural  and  universal. 
We  are  more  willing  to  show  the  extent  of  our 
strength  than  of  our  wisdom.  We  retain  with 
dissatisfaction  what  is  left  us  by  the  unprincipled, 
and,  with  all  the  ardor  and  promptitude  of 
desperation,  transfer  it  to  the  powerful.  In  this 
frame  of  mind  the  indulgence  of  an  angry 
humour  is  a  sufficient  reward  for  our  sacrifice  ; 
after  this  we  are  obstinate  in  maintaining  the 
power  we  have  set  up,  lest  others  should  reproach 
us  with  our  rashness.  The  people  of  France  are 
ashamed  that  they  dare  not  resist  their  oppressor, 
and  hate  us  from  the  bottom  of  their  hearts 
because  they  know  that  we  despise  them  for  it. 
These  are  feelings  which  will  remain  in  full  force 
so  long  as  the  cause  of  them  is  in  existence,  and, 
if  ever  we  make  a  peace  with  them,  they  will 
employ  themselves  in  playing  only  a  short  inter- 
lude before  the  last  act.  Yet  persons  who  had, 
what  they  well  merit,  the  infamy  of  calling  them- 
selves Foxites,  are  not  ashamed  to  recommend 
one.  Is  this  only  a  folly,  or  is  it  a  base  and 
sordid  despair,  which  throws  itself  into  the  dust 
lest  it  should  be  trampled  on ;  or  is  it,  as  I  have 
often  suspected,  a  plea  to  be  urged  in  future  for 
exemption  from  pillage  and   persecution  ?     Were 


110       VISIT  TO   THE   CONTINENT 

I  certain  that  Napoleon  could  invade  this  country, 
and  equally  certain,  as  I  should  be,  that  my  pro- 
perty, no  part  of  which  is  movable,  would  become 
his  prey,  still  I  declare  before  God  I  would  rather 
endure  the  total  loss  of  it  than  the  ignominy  of 
such  a  peace  as  he  declares  shall  be  imposed  on 
England.     There  cannot  be  such  miserable  drivel- 
lers as  to  beheve  that  his  actions  would  be  less 
atrocious    than    his    threats.     No    power    in   the 
universe    could    keep    possession   of   this    island. 
Artificial  heroes,   patrons   of  hatters   and  tailors, 
generals  who  are  helped  on  their  horses  by  their 
rank,  would  be  forced  to  retire  from  duties  which 
they  cannot   fulfil ;   and,  after  the  first  gush  and 
conflict  of  the  political  elements,  every  thing  would 
rise  or  fall   to   its   proper  level.     Men  would  go 
for  their   value ;    what    is    promissory  would  be 
nugatory,  every  thing  sterling  would  be  looked  for 
everywhere,  and  held  at  a  mighty  price.     Genius 
is  the  creature  of  necessity :  when  we  wanted  no 
better    or    braver    men    than    a    Pulteney    or  a 
Whitelocke,^   we  had   them   not ;   but   when    the 
voice   of    God    is    heard   in   the  whirlwind   men 
capable  of  governing  will  arise. 

[Page  65. — "As  we  approached  Lisle,  I  shut 
Joseph  Andrews,  and  a  new  scene  opened  before 
us."] 

'  General  Sir  James  Murray  Pulteney,  and  Whitelocke.    See  above, 
p.  20. 


chapte;r  VI 

GHENT  AND  ANTWERP 

Charles  V.  and  C.  J.  Fox — A  fatuous  comparison — Gustavus  Adolphus 
— Beguines — French  annexation  of  the  Netherlands — Importance 
of  Antwerp — Street  architecture — Fallen  grandeur — Opening  of 
the  Scheld — Ship-building — Future  prospects. 

[Page  75. — "  We  entered  Ghent.  It  is  a  large 
and  magnificent  town.  The  houses  are  lofty  and 
venerable,  as  well  from  the  grandeur  of  their 
appearance,  as  from  their  antiquity.  .  .  .  The 
scenery  was  well  adapted  for  that  wild,  yet  capti- 
vating species  of  romance  writing  which,  from 
Mrs.  Radcliffe's  pen,  produced  so  much  effect.  In 
Ghent,  too,  Charles  the  Fifth,  that  extraordinary 
character,  uniting  so  many  extremes  in  itself,  was 
born  and  often  resided."] 

Page  78. — "  Charles  in  his  monastery  and  Fox  at 
St.  Anne's  Hill  were  contrasts  of  the  most  striking 
nature." 

So  were  Charles  and  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield, 

or,   if  we  must  have  a  real   and   no    imaginary 

character.    Home    Tooke.      A    more    instructive 

parallel  might  be  drawn  between  two  sovereigns, 

particularly  if   both  had  been  successful  in  the 

train  of  politics.     For  instance,  Charles   V.   and 

Gustavus    Adolphus.       Different    from    Charles, 

111 


112  GHENT  AND   ANTWERP 

and  infinitely  greater,  was  Gustavus  Adolphus. 
Both  were  conquerors,  both  were  ambitious,  both 
were  religious,  and  equally  enthusiastic  in  their 
respective  creeds.  Gustavus  died  by  the  hand 
of  an  assassin,  the  Duke  of  Saxe-Lauenburg ;  ^ 
it  was,  however,  in  the  field  of  battle.  Charles's  ^ 
end  was  pitiable,  I  had  almost  said  contemptible. 
Gustavus's  was  consistent  with  his  life.  No 
hours  of  his  existence  Were  consumed  in  winding 
up  watches  or  in  dropping  beads.  A  series  of 
moral  and  religious  duties  formed  the  rosary 
which  never  left  his  bosom. 

Page  80. — "  We  visited  at  Ghent  a  very  interest- 
ing establishment,  the  residence  of  the  Beguines. 
[.  .  .  .  I  have  seldom  seen  any  thing  more  pleasing 
than  this  select  religious  establishment.  ...  I 
think  that  in  Protestant  countries  there  is  a  strong 
and  unjust  prejudice  against  such  societies.  .  .  . 
I  was  very  much  gratified  at  beholding  so  many 
amiable  and  happy  females,  whose  countenances 
spoke  tranquillity  and  benevolence,  and  whose  little 
mansions  were  the  abodes  of  peace,  comfort  and 
decency.]" 

I    hope   Mr.    Fox   experienced   here  the    same 

*  Francis  Albert,  Duke  of  Saxe-Lauenberg,  was  "  supposed  by  some 
to  have  killed  Gustavus  treacherously  and  dishonourably  in  the  battle 
of  Liitzen  [November  6,  1632]  ;  or  rather  to  have  conspired  against  his 
life  by  giving  some  secret  signal  to  the  Imperialists  during  the  heat 
of  action." — Rev.  W.  Harte,  History  of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  3rd  ed., 
1807,  ii.  305. 

*  The  Emperor  Charles  V.  died  at  the  jponastery  of  Yuste  on 
September  21,  1558.  Robertson's  description  of  his  life  in  retirement 
has  been  shown  to  be  inaccurate. 


BENEVOLENT   SENTIMENTS       113 

sentiments  as  his  friend  ;  they  are  very  benevolent 
and  very  just ;  and  I  do  believe  he  did ;  for  a 
part  of  his  heart,  in  despite  of  dissipation  and 
poUtics,  was  generous  and  sound.  But,  although 
he  countenanced  not  a  few  superfluities  in  state, 
he  was  somewhat  more  strict  with  religion.  The 
Beguines^  are  among  the  Catholics  what  the 
Moravian  sisters  are  among  the  reformed.  So 
that  the  secretary  is  wrong  when  he  fancies  that 
there  is  in  protestant  countries  a  strong  and 
unjust  prejudice  against  such  societies. 

Page  84. — "  [Towards  evening  we  came  in  view 
of  Antwerp.  .  .  .  We  had  passed  through  the 
finest  part  of  Flanders,  in  the  time  of  harvest,  and 
had,  of  course,  seen  it  to  the  greatest  advantage.  .  .  . 
And  all  this  fine  country  acquired  by  France :  this 
vast  acquisition  of  strength  to  her  Empire,  conferred 
on  her  by  the  blunders,  and  the  blind  fury  of  the 
allied  Powers.]  No  consequence  of  the  fatal  system 
of  threatening  the  very  existence  of  France  as  a 
nation,  among  many  lamentable  ones,  has  been 
more  injurious  than  that  of  the  annexation  of  the 
Netherlands  to  that  power." 

We  might  have  been  the  arbiters  of  Europe, 
we  might  have  liberated,  or  encouraged  the 
liberation  of,  the  Netherlands  from  Austria ;   and 

*  "  '  By  thy  description.  Trim,'  said  my  uncle  Toby,  '  I  dare  say  she 
was  a  young  Beguine,  of  which  there  are  none  found  anywhere  but  in 
the  Spanish  Netherlands — except  at  Amsterdam  : — they  differ  from 
nuns  in  this,  that  they  can  quit  their  cloister  if  they  choose  to  marry.' " 
— Sterne's  Tristram  Shandy,  chap.  264. 

15 


114  GHENT   AND    ANTWERP 

France  would  gladly  have  guaranteed  their  in- 
dependence. She  dreaded  us,  and  us  only,  and 
there  was  a  moment  when  her  love  of  liberty 
was  generous  and  sincere.  Of  all  the  cities  she 
has  conquered,  Antwerp  is  the  most  important. 
Rome,  Milan,  Turin,  Alexandria  itself,  are  villages 
in  the  map  of  politics,  if  surveyed  with  Antwerp. 
On  our  side  of  the  Alps  hardly  any  city  is  com- 
parable to  it  in  the  magnificence  of  its  streets. 
Where  London  has  one  stately  edifice,  there  are 
ten  in  Antwerp.  In  London  there  are  not  ten 
houses  whose  fronts  are  grand,  or  have  indeed 
any  kind  of  pretension  to  architectural  beauty. 
In  Antwerp  there  are  some  hundreds  whose 
appearance  is  imposing  and  superb. 

\_Page  87. — "  Antwerp  was,  however,  as  well 
as  Ghent,  a  striking  exhibition  of  fallen  grandeur. 
The  streets  were  silent,  and  grass  grew  in  many 
parts :  the  busy  stir  of  man  was  wanting  to 
animate  this  immense  collection  of  buildings ;  no 
roll  of  carriages  manifested  the  opulence  and  luxury 
of  the  inhabitants,  the  sound  of  the  human  voice 
was  little  heard,  and  those  animals  attendant  on 
man  were  not  seen."] 

"  The  streets,"  we  are  informed,  "  were  silent, 
and  grass  grew  in  many  parts."  I  have  heard  it 
asserted  that  the  value  of  houses  has  risen  since  in 
a  quadruple  ratio,  and  that  those  bordering  on  the 
quay  sold  at  from  seven  to  twelve  times  as  much 
as  when  Bonaparte  came  to  the  supreme  power. 


THE   PORT   ON   THE   SCHELD     115 

Page  88. — "  [As  the  Scheld,  however,  was  just 
opened,  there  were  some  symptoms  of  reviving 
commerce,  and  Antwerp  has,  most  probably,  ere 
now,  assumed  a  lively  appearance ;  although  it  will 
require  a  long  time  to  restore  the  population,  and 
give  energy  to  the  whole  mass  of  this  deserted, 
but  magnificent  city.  The  municipal  officers 
waited  on  Mr.  Fox,  and  we  passed  the  day  very 
agreeably  in  seeing  every  thing  worthy  of  attention 
at  Antwerp.  .  .  .  The  Cathedral  is  very  fine. 
We  saw  three  good  collections  of  pictures,  and  the 
academy  of  paintings.  The  French  carried  away 
Rubens's  best  pictures  from  hence,  but  two  very 
fine  ones  have  been  returned.  We  did  not  see 
the  citadel,  which  we  understood  was  in  a  good 
state.]  The  idea  of  building  ships  and  restoring 
the  French  marine  at  Antwerp,  though  in  its 
infancy  when  we  rested  there,  was  however  strong 
and  prevalent." 

When  we  consider  that  no  place  in  Europe,  not 
excepting  Constantinople,  is  situated  so  favourably 
for  communication  with  all  the  country  in  every 
direction  round  it,  if  we  take  also  into  account 
the  number  of  forests,  the  level  surface  along 
which  the  timber  may  be  conveyed  to  the  rivers 
and  the  canals,  the  great  population,  the  moderate 
price  of  labour,  and  the  facility  of  provisioning  a 
great  force  for  a  longer  time  than  perhaps  any- 
where else  in  the  universe ;  we  may  then  compute 
the  advantages  which  a  vigorous  and  intelligent 
sovereign  will  derive  from  its  possession. 


CHAPTER  VII 

DUTCH  NETHERLANDS 

Breda — The  Stadtholder — England  and  the  Continent — Nelson  at 
Naples — Prosperity  of  Holland — Commerce  and  industry — Evil 
of  factories — Fisheries — Amsterdam — Republican  Governments- 
Greek  and  Roman — Flight  of  the  Stadtholder — Murder  of  the 
de  Witts — Fox's  humanity  and  indecision. 

\_Page  96. — "  We  entered  Dutch  Brabant  on 
leaving  the  French  territory.  The  roads  became 
heavy  and  sandy,  and  the  country  quite  uninterest- 
ing. We  now  had  recourse  to  Tom  Jones,  and 
I  read  a  great  deal  of  that  excellent  work  aloud 
on  our  way  to  Breda.  Mr.  Fox  enjoyed  it  very 
much." 

Page  98. — "Breda  is  remarkable  as  the  residence 
of  the  English  exiled  monarch,  Charles  II.  I  viewed 
it  with  no  respect  on  that  account." 

Page  99. — "  The  deserted  gardens  of  the  Prince 
of  Orange  {ci-devant  Stadtholder)  gave  me  another 
lesson  on  the  fallacy  and  unsteadiness  of  human 
grandeur.]  The  Stadtholder,  in  residing  in  England, 
had  abandoned  his  high  station,  which  a  truly  great 
man  would  have  preserved,  or  fallen  gloriously 
resisting  the  incursion  of  the  French." 

I  have  nothing   to  say  about  the  Stadtholder,^ 

'  William  IV.,  Prince  of  Orange,  the  hereditary  Stadtholder,  fled 
from  Holland  in  January,  1795,  on  the  advance  of  the  French  army 
under  Pichegru,  who  entered  Amsterdam  in  triumph  on  January  20. 

116 


FRANCE  AND   THE   DUTCH      117 

whom  no  one  ever  expected  to  find  "  a  truly- 
great  man ; "  but  truly  great  men  have  occasion- 
ally left  a  country  where  irresistible  force  from 
external  enemies,  or  the  torrent  of  public  opinion, 
came  against  them.  Both  were  united  against 
this  poor  wretched  creature.  Either  would  have 
mastered  him.  The  Dutch  opened  the  gates  of 
all  their  towns  to  France,  because  our  government 
and  the  King  of  Prussia  stood  in  array  against 
freedom.  We  have  always  made  nations  our 
enemies,  to  conciliate  the  insects  of  cabinets, 
which  we  have  seen  invariably,  one  after  another, 
kicked  and  trampled  into  the  dust.  An  example 
is  now  unfolding.  The  Sicilians  almost  adored 
us,  but  we  countenanced  and  subsidised  their 
oppressors ;  and  for  the  service  of  two  or  three 
persons,  no  less  weak  than  faithless,  we  shall  soon 
encounter  all  the  vengeance  of  a  spirited  and  re- 
monstrating people,  not  afraid,  but  unwilling  to 
strike,  who  have  been  driven  by  nakedness  and 
want  to  resume  their  natural  rights. 

Brontesque  Steropesque,  et  nudus  membra  Pyracmon,' 

will  do  something  very  disagreeable,  and  perhaps 
rude,  to  majesties  and  marquises  and  eccellentissimi. 
The  days  of  hanging,  on  board  of  English  ships, 
men   who    reHed    on    royal    promises    and   naval 

^  Virgil,  JEndd,  viii.  426. 


118  DUTCH  NETHERLANDS 

honour,  are  all  over.^  Woe  betide  those  who 
intercept  or  impede  the  just  vengeance  of  an 
injured  and  outraged  people.  Sicily  might  be 
worth  more  to  us  than  any  of  our  foreign 
possessions,  for  with  it  we  might  possess  the 
Sicilians.  The  politician  does  not  measure  coun- 
tries merely  by  degrees  of  latitude  and  longitude ; 
sugar  and  coffee  and  bales  of  merchandise  are 
not  his  only  goods.  He  leaves  such  imperfect 
estimates  to  such  bare  book-keepers  as  Mr.  W. 
Pitt.  "Concordia  res  parvse  crescunt,  discordia 
magnae  dilabuntur," '^  is  an  axiom  he  applies  not 
merely  to  the  natives  of  his  own  country,  but 
to  their  agreement  in  friendly  and  equal  inter- 
course with  allies.  To  have  a  fellow-feeling  in 
their  interests  is  essentially  necessary,  and  to 
provide  that  they  do  not  rot  in  cold  obstruction^ 
from  an  arrogant  and  stupid  king. 

Pages  100-101. — "[The  appearance  of  Holland, 
that  creation  of  liberty,  industry,  and  commerce, 
though  a  flat  country,  and  quite  destitute  of  the 
picturesque,  is,  however,  most  pleasing  to  any 
person  of  reflection  and  benevolence.  ...  1  cannot 

•  Referring^  no  doubt,  to  the  execution^  by  Nelson's  order,  of  Prince 
Francesco  Caraccioli,  in  1799,  though  he  was  hanged  on  board  the  Sicilian 
frigate  La  Minerva.  Landor  writes  elsewhere :  "  What  did  Nelson  ?  He 
tarnished  the  brightest  sword  in  Europe,  and  devoted  to  the  most 
insatiable  of  the  Furies  the  purest  blood  !  A  Caroline  and  a  Ferdinand, 
the  most  opprobrious  of  the  human  race  and  among  the  lowest  in 
intellect,  were  permitted  to  riot  in  the  slaughter  of  a  Caraccioli." — 
Works,  vi.  60. 

*  Sallust,  Jugurtha,  10. 

'  Shakespeare,  Measure  for  Measure,  iii.  1. 


HOLLAND'S   PATIENT   SONS       119 

quite  accede  to  the  poet's  description  of  Holland.^ 
.  .  .  Commerce,  when  carried  to  excess,  like  most 
other  pursuits  of  man,  becomes  pernicious,  and 
productive  of  ill  consequences ;  particular  instances, 
too,  of  avaricious  and  unfeeling  characters  engaged 
in  it  may  lead  to  an  unfavourable  opinion  of  com- 
merce itself ;  but]  if  any  one  were  disposed  to  deny 
its  amazingly  beneficial  effects — commerce — he  has 
but  to  look  at  Holland  to  be  convinced  that  he  is 
wrong." 

Indeed,  indeed,  he  ought  to  take  a  little  more 
trouble,  and  to  look  in  other  places ;  at  least,  if 
a  man  is  equally  zealous  to  be  convinced  that  he 
is  wrong,  as  he  usually  is  to  be  convinced  that 
he  is  right.  Commerce,  in  some  stages  of  society, 
and  to  a  certain  extent,  is  useful  and  beneficial. 
Fishing,  before  ardent  spirits  were  common,  was 
an  occupation  hardly  less  laudable  than  agricul- 
ture, or  less  important  to  the  strength  and 
resources  of  a  state.  It  invigorates  the  body, 
hardens  the  mind  against  despondency  and  danger, 
and  employs  great  numbers  in  healthy  occupa- 
tions. In  Holland,  marshes  were  excavated  for 
dockyards,  canals  were  dug  for  track-schuyts, 
woods  were  cleared  for  timber,  room  was  made 
for  an  accession  of  population,  and  food  was 
provided  in  proportion  to  its  increase.  Sailors 
were  now  become  hardy  and  enterprising ;  they 

'  Trotter  here  quotes  Goldsmith's  well-known  lines  in  The  Traveller, 
1.  299,  etc. 


120  DUTCa  NETHERLANDS 

embarked  for  distant  voyages,  they  encountered 
difficulties,  they  contended  and  overcame  them. 
Rivalry  grew  up,  and  foreign  powers  were  anxious 
to  participate  in  their  success.  Energy  was  called 
forth,  and  what  was  worth  winning  was  worth 
enjoying.  New  means  of  defence  and  of  attack 
were  resorted  to,  opposition  kept  pace  with  them, 
and  an  industrious  soon  became  a  warlike,  and 
a  warlike  a  powerful,  people.  But  the  commerce 
which  employs  many  thousands  of  the  young,*  in 
crowded  rooms,  extremely  low,  among  the  vapour 
of  lamps,  without  fresh  air  and  locomotion,  and 
without  any  separation  of  the  sexes,  does  mischief, 
the  extent  of  which  it  would  be  painful  and  dis- 
gusting to  detail.  In  a  general  and  political 
view,  its  ill  effects  are  palpable.  It  places  many 
under  the  immediate  controul  of  one,  and  assails 
the  purity  of  election.  In  short,  the  commerce 
of  manufactories  will  appear,  on  the  whole,  more 
prejudicial  to  virtue,  to  happiness,  to  health,  to 
independence,  than  serviceable  to  the  support  of 
any  well-regulated  state.^     We  must  not  then  be 

'  ''The  House  of  Commons,"  Landor  wrote,  in  1829,  ''has  lately 
passed  an  Act,  hy  which  it  is  provided  that  children  under  nine  years 
of  age  shall  not  be  obliged  to  work  longer  than  twelve  hours  in  the  day. 
Do  not  the  wretches  deserve  to  he  stoned  to  death,  who  thus  authorise 
the  infliction  of  such  hard  labour  on  creatures  so  incapable  of  enduring 
it}"— Works,  iil  282. 

*  "  Manufactures  tend  to  deteriorate  the  species,  bat  begin  by 
humanizing  it.  Happy  those  countries  which  have  occasion  for  little 
more  than  may  supply  the  home  consumption." — Landor,  Works,  iii. 
117,  where  the  first  word  is  misprinted  "manufacturers." 


PERNICIOUS   INDUSTRIES         121 

lavish  and  indiscriminate  in  the  praises  we  bestow 
on  commerce,  since  the  species  of  it  I  have  pointed 
out  is   noxious   whenever  it  is   extensive,  and  is 
more  Hkely  to  be  general  than  any.     Every  nation 
will  be   now  obliged  to   employ  its  own  hands, 
and  one  will  employ  them  more  extensively  and 
perniciously  than  others,  and  will  attempt  to  start 
before   its   neighbours,   in    a  course   which    leads 
neither  to  its  strength  nor  happiness.     All  nations 
possessing  a  sea-coast  should  extend  their  fisheries 
to  the  utmost.     The  fisherman  has  one  perpetual 
harvest-time^;   he   employs   no   cattle   subject  to 
disease   and   inactivity,   his    fences   are   destroyed 
by  no   trespasses,   and,   if   his    hopes    are   disap- 
pointed, they  are  however  not   the  hopes  of  the 
year.     He  has  another  field  whenever  he  chooses 
to   work   it,   and   his   profits   are   not   anticipated 
by  the  tillage.     If  we  take  a  general  and  political 
view  of  it,  as  we  did  of  that  species  which  arises 
from   manufactories,   we    shall  perceive   that  the 
nearer  men   are   brought   to   meet  invasion,   and 
the  greater  number  of  them,  and  the  more  dan- 
gerous and  enterprising  their  pursuits,  a  country 
will  be  the  stronger  and  the  safer. 

'  ''A  few  years  ago,"  Oliver  Goldsmith  wrote  in  1759,  "the  herring 
fisheries  employed  all  Grub  Street ;  it  was  the  topic  of  every  coffee- 
house, and  the  burden  of  every  ballad.  We  were  to  drag  up  oceans  of 
gold  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea ;  we  were  to  supply  all  Europe  with 
herrings  upon  our  own  terms.  At  present  we  hear  no  more  of  this. 
We  have  fished  up  very  little  gold  that  I  can  learn." — Works,  Globo 
ed.,  p.  398. 

16 


122  DUTCH  NETHERLANDS 

[Pa^e  106. — "Amsterdam  is  a  noble  and  populous 
city,  and  pre-eminent,  I  believe,  above  all  others,  for 
the  general  diffusion  of  employment,  and  the  total 
absence  of  misery  and  want."] 

Page  107. — "  [  I  could  not  have  imagined  a  more 
perfect  scene  of  human  occupation  and  comfort ; 
the  equality  of  station,  and  the  competency  enjoyed 
by  all,  afforded  that  true  idea  of  social  perfection 
which  theorists  have  written  and  talked  so  much 
of,  but  which  few  countries  have  realised  in  modern 
times.  The  distinctions  of  an  aristocratic  noblesse 
and  a  miserable  populace,  did  not  offend  the  eye.] 
The  youth  who  studies,  and  the  man  who  thmks, 
possess  defective  notions  regarding  states,  and  forms 
of  government,  until  they  travel.  The  republics  of 
Greece  and  Rome  are  well  known  in  history,  but 
their  glories  and  defects  are  no  more  to  be  discerned 
by  the  eye  of  the  vigilant  observer."^ 

If  the  republics  of  Greece  and  Rome  are  well 
known  in  history,  how  happens  it  that  even  the 
vigilant  observer  can  discern  neither  their  "  glories 
nor  defects  ? "  What  then  is  it  we  know  of 
them  ?  I  have  often  fancied  that  I  could  discern 
some  glories  in  the  early  times  of  Rome.  Livy, 
and  Polybius,  and  Plutarch,  have  recorded  such 
things  as  make  me  acknowledge 

Scilicet  et  rerum  facta  est  pulcherrima  Roma.^ 

A  little  book,   such   as   I   could   carry  in  my 

'  Possibly  through  an  oversight,  Landor  transposes  the  last  two 
sentences  in  this  extract,  which  is  here  given  as  in  the  original. 
^  Virgil,  Georgics,  ii.  534. 


WISDOM   OF  I'HE  ANCIENTS     123 

coat  sleeve,  Fenestella^  will  give  me  a  short 
account  of  the  magistratures,  etc.,  if  I  want  one. 
More  great  actions  of  individuals  are  recorded  by 
even  what  remains  of  Livy  than  by  all  the  English 
historians  put  together,  and  their  institutions  are 
as  clearly  set  before  us,  and  as  fully,  as  those  of 
England  are  in  Blackstone's  Commentaries.  A 
greater  number  of  profound  remarks  was  made 
on  the  governments  of  Greece  and  Rome  after 
they  existed  than  during  their  existence.  Aristotle 
has  given  a  summary  view  of  many,  which  were 
estabhshed  in  countries  he  never  visited.  Not 
only  the  changes  and  corruption  which  had  de- 
formed the  Roman  commonwealth  before  his  time, 
but  also  the  manners  and  customs  of  Germany, 
are  described  by  Tacitus,  the  truth  of  whose 
description  is  corroborated  by  subsequent  experi- 
ence. Yet  he  never  lived  or  travelled  in  that 
country.  How  many  wise  and  admirable  remarks 
are  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Plutarch,  and 
Polybius  I  I  have  mentioned  these  illustrious 
men  before,  yet  I  cannot  refrain  from  repeating 
their  names,  and  from  expressing  my  regret  that 
their  works  are  not  more  studied  in  schools  and 
colleges.     If  others  have  excelled  them  in  style, 

*  A  work  entitled  Be  Magistratibtis  Sacerdotiisque  Romanorum,  was 
attributed  to  Lucius  Fenestella,  a  Latin  historian  who  died  a.d.  21.  It 
is  now  believed  to  have  been  the  production  of  Dominic  Floccus,  a 
Florentine  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Editions  in  16mo  were  printed 
at  Geneva  in  1699^  and  Cologne  in  1607. 


124  DUTCH   NETHERLANDS 

none  afford  such  varied  and  such  extensive  infor- 
mation, or  such  an  admirable  detail  of  the  means 
by  which  the  greatest  men  became  great.  Mr. 
Fox,  I  suspect,  might  have  derived  more  advan- 
tage from  them  than  from  his  introduction  to  the 
first  consul,  or  his  researches  in  the  Scots  college, 
though  the  latter  were  proper  for  his  undertaking. 

Page  121. — "  [Mr.  Fox  was  very  much  pleased 
with  the  Hague,  and  with  this  wood,^  which 
received  admiration  from  us  all.  .  .  .  We  drove  to 
Scheveling,  on  the  sea  shore.  .  .  .  Here  the 
Stadtholder  embarked  when  he  fled.  I  believe 
Holland  suffered  nothing  from  his  abdication,  but 
when  I  stood  on  the  shore]  I  could  not  refrain 
from  despising  the  man  who  flies  when  his  country 
is  in  danger ;  unless  it  be  that  he  has  governed  it 
ill,  and  fears  the  just  resentment  of  his  countrymen, 
in  which  case  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have 
assisted  him  into  his  boat." 

Unless!  Is  he  not  quite  as  despicable  in  flying 
with  all  the  consciousness  of  having  governed  ill  ? 
There  is  nothing  in  which  I  differ  more  widely 
from  the  secretary  than  in  the  sentiment  that 
follows.  Instead  of  helping  him  into  the  boat,  I 
should  think  if  my  duty  to  detain  him,  were  he 
flying  from  the  just  resentment  of  his  countrymen, 
as  I  would  a  housebreaker  or  pickpocket  in  the 
same  circumstances,  if  the  country  that  afforded 
me  hospitahty  demanded   it   at   my  hands.      In 

*  The  Haagsche  Bosch. 


A   DETESTABLE   CRIME  125 

doing  this,  he  must  first  have  violated  the  funda- 
mental laws  of  the  land,  and  must  afterwards 
have  left  the  remainder  without  an  executive 
power.  The  Stadtholder  had,  in  fact,  brought  an 
armed  force  of  foreigners  against  Holland.  The 
crime  is  capital.  He  was  virtually  outlawed ;  and 
it  was  the  duty  of  every  Dutchman  to  arrest  him 
and  bring  him  to  justice. 

Pages  122-3. — "  [We  saw  one  picture,  however, 
at  the  Hague  which,  as  it  must  fiU  any  person 
with  horror  who  views  it,  must  derogate  a  good 
deal  from  my  praises  of  Dutch  moderation  and 
calmness.  I  allude  to  the  massacre  of  the  De 
Witts.  The  death  of  these  excellent  men  and 
true  patriots  is  but  too  faithfully  depicted  in  a 
small  picture  at  the  Maison  de  Bois.^  It  excited 
great  disgust  in  Mr.  Fox,  and  with  great  reason. 
.  .  .  Among  a  thousand  instances,  this  is  one 
which  deserves  notice,  of]  Mr.  Fox's  admirable  force 
of  mind,  equally  reprobating  the  direful  rage  of 
the  populace,  as  the  vindictive  cruelty  of  a 
tyrant.'" 

Though  the  direful  rage  of  a  populace  never 
committed  any  one  action  so  lamentable  and 
detestable  as  the  murder  of  the  De  Witts,  yet 
the   vindictive   cruelty  of  a  tyrant  is   still  more 

•  The  Huisteu  Bosch,  a  royal  villa  built  in  1647  for  Princess  Amalie, 
widow  of  Prince  Frederick  Henry  of  Orange. 

*  "  It  was  quite  distressing  to  him,"  Trotter  adds,  "  to  speak  upon 
the  catastrophe  of  the  De  Witts.  His  countenance  was  full  of  horror 
at  sight  of  the  memorable  picture.' 


126  DUTCH  NETHERLANDS 

abominable,  because  more  lasting  and  more  sys- 
tematic. So,  if  Mr.  Fox  reprobated  them  equally, 
he  was  injudicious  and  unwise.  Let  us  rather  say 
of  him  that  he  abhorred  them  both.  Surely  that 
is  no  very  extraordinary  mind,  where  such  a 
natural  and  universal  sentiment  is  adduced  as  an 
instance  of  its  admirable  force.  Mr.  Fox  was  a 
very  humane  man ;  yet  by  his  negligence  and 
indecision  such  actions  were  committed  and 
ordered  at  Buenos  Ayres,  as  produced  the  death 
of  many  brave  men,  infinite  calamity,  and  indelible 
disgrace.  Just  enough  of  men  for  a  sacrifice  were 
sent  also  to  Alexandria  and  to  Constantinople. 
If  all  these  had  been  united  in  aid  of  the  Russians, 
many  thousands  of  their  army  would  not  have  met 
an  untimely  end,  nor  the  war  have  experienced 
an  unsuccessful  one. 

Page  124. — "[Mr.  Fox's  disposition  taught  him 
to  govern  at  home  with  parental  mildness,  and 
always  to  conciliate  and  encourage,  rather  than 
terrify ;]  his  genius  led  him  to  choose  the  grandest 
measures  in  foreign  politics,  and  to  make  war  short 
by  making  it  decided." 

Then  his  destiny  crossed  his  genius  ;  for  nothing 
is  more  contrary  to  the  actual  events  of  his 
administration. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

COMPANIONSHIP  OF  BOOKS 

Readings  in  Virgil — Orpheus  in  the  Georgics — A  false  note — The 
nightingale — Homer  and  Lucretius — The  moral  of  a  poem — 
Paradise  Lost — Episodes  in  the  JEneid — Lucan's  Pharsalia — Virgil's 
pathos — Fox's  favourite  passages — Virgil  as  a  politician — Grenville 
and  the  French  Ambassador — Edmund  Burke — Tom  Jones  and  The 
Arabian  Nights — Criticism  of  contemporaries — Dr.  Johnson  and 
Miss  Seward — Fox  on  Ariosto — The  shield  of  Achilles — Tasso — 
Ovid — Cervantes  and  the  romance  writers — Spenser  and  Dante — 
Alfieri — Metastasio — Greek  tragedians. 

[Page  89. — "  If  my  readers  can  pardon  the  intro- 
duction of  trifles,  and  my  classical  ones  imagine 
the  delight  I  felt  at  reading  passages  of  the  ^neid 
of  Virgil  with  Mr.  Fox,  they  will  excuse  my 
mention  of  another  little  course  of  reading  on  this 
short  tour,  on  account  of  the  valued  name  of  him, 
unhappily  for  the  world,  no  more.  I  had  begun 
the  j^iieid  at  St.  Anne's  HiU  previous  to  our 
setting  out,  and  had  advanced  a  good  way  in  it 
before  we  set  off.  I  continued  my  reading  as 
opportunity  allowed,  and  Mr.  Fox  never  received 
greater  pleasure  than  when  I  ventured  to  point  out 
passages  which  pleased  me.  Of  Virgil's  ^neid  he 
was  a  true  admirer ;  and  the  tincture  of  melancholy 
which  he  thought  ran  through  his  work,  was  by  no 
means  displeasing  to  him." 

Page  125. — "  There  was  nothing  lively  at  the 
Hague.  .  .  .  The  want  of  political  objects,  I  was 

127 


128      COMPANIONSHIP  OF  BOOKS 

able  very  agreeably  to  supply,  by  continuing  my 
reading  of  the  JEneid.  In  this  Mr.  Fox  joined 
with  undiminished  pleasure,  and  here  we  read  the 
10th  book." 

Page  129. — "  The  conclusion  of  the  10th  book, 
the  death  of  Lausus,  and  the  resistance  and  fall  of 
Mezentius,  Mr.  Fox  did  not  fail  very  much  to 
admire."] 

Page  130. — "  [In  making  the  death  of  a  tjrant 
so  very  unhappy,^]  Virgil  has  shown  himself  an 
enemy  to  oppression  and  worthy  the  name  of 
Roman." 

Dehghtful  is  it  to  escape  from  the  cabinet  into 
the  fields  of  literature.  Neither  our  errors  there, 
nor  the  enemies  we  meet,  are  at  all  prejudicial 
to  the  public  good.  It  would  have  been  propitious 
to  the  happiness,  and  to  the  fame  of  Mr.  Fox, 
if  he  had  cultivated  them  more  assiduously,  and 
never  left  them.  Every  man,  I  believe,  is  an 
enemy  to  oppression  in  some  cases ;  and  Virgil 
was,  at  all  events,  "  worthy  the  name  of  Roman  " 
in  poetry.  Never  was  verse  more  harmonious, 
sentiments  more  equi-distant  from  flatness 
and  hyperbole,  or  touches  of  nature  more  true ; 
still,  contrary  to  what  Scaliger  has  advanced,  the 
passages  which  he  has  translated  from  Homer  are 
inferior  not  only  to  Homer's,  but  to  every  thing 

'  j^neid,  x.  833  et  seq. 


ORPHEUS   AND   EURYDICE       129 

of  his   own.     Even  those  celebrated  lines  in  the 

Georgics  : 

Qualis  populea,  etc.^ 

will  bear  no  comparison  with  the  original  in  the 
Odyssea.'^  The  story  of  Orpheus  is  admirably 
told,  but  the  passage  has  many  and  gross  faults 
The  feelings  are  always  right ;  the  accompani- 
ments not  always.  I  shall  follow  the  example  of 
Mr.  Fox  and  his  friend  in  making  some  remarks 
on  this  subject ;  not  echoing  old  exclamations  of 
rapture,  but  pointing  out  what  is  bad,  occasionally, 
and  throwing  light  on  what  is  obscure, 

Ignoscenda  quidem  scirent  si  ignoscere  Manes.' 

Commentators  and  translators  have  imagined 
the  Manes  to  have  been  implacable  and  unmerciful 
to  the  fault  of  Orpheus.  On  the  contrary,  they 
were  appeased  by  honey  and  flour,  and  would 
most  willingly,  as  Virgil  means  to  say,  have 
remitted  the  forfeit  of  the  unhappy  husband,  if  it 
had  rested  with  them  ;  but  it  was  in  other  hands. 
At  one  time  he  tells  us  that  Proserpine  laid  down 

'  Qualis  populea  maerens  Philomela  sub  umbra 
Amissos  quaeritur  fetus,  quos  durus  arator 
Observans  nido  implumes  detraxit :  at  ilia 
Flet  noctem,  ramoque  sedens  miserabile  carmen 
Integrat,  et  msestis  late  loca  questibus  implet. 

ViRGii/,  Georgics,  iv.  611. 

*  Homer,  Odyssey,  xix.  518. 

*  Virgil,  Georgics,  iv.  489. 

17 


130      COMPANIONSHIP   OF   BOOKS 

the  conditions,^  but  just  after  he  attributes  them 
to  Pluto.' 

Septem  ilium  totos  perhibent  ex  ordine  menses,  etc' 

It  is  surely  no  extraordinary  thing  to  lament 
the  loss  of  a  wife  for  seven  whole  months  ;  but 
the  poet  adds,  "  rupe  sub  aeria."  I  wish  he  had 
not  also  added 

Mulcentem  tigres,  et  agentem  carmine  quercus. 

There  is  nothing  of  poetry  in  it,  and  it  shocks 
probability  to  no  purpose.  In  Thrace  there  never 
were  tigers.  The  coldness  of  the  climate,  which 
was  formerly  much  more  intense,  would  not 
permit  their  existence.  It  would  be  a  bad  defence 
to  assert  that  by  tigers  he  means  wild  beasts  in 
general.  If  he  intended  this,  he  would  have 
written 

Mulcentemque  feras,  et  agentem  carmine  quercus. 

The  hyperbole  which  follows  is  the  admiration 
of  all  critics,  who  follow  up  admiration  from 
tradition,  but  it  is  so  violent  and  absurd,  that  Virgil 
must  have  produced  it  much  earlier  in  hfe  than 
the  other  parts  of  his  Georgics: 

Turn  quoque  marmorea  caput  a  cervice  revolsum 
Gurgite  cum  medio  portans  (Eagrius  Hebrus 

*  Namque  hanc  dederat  Proserpina  legem. — lb.  487. 

*  Immitis  rupta  tyranni  foedera. — lb.  492. 

'  Septem  ilium  totos  perhibent  ex  ordine  menses 
Rupe  sub  aeria  deserti  ad  Strymonis  undam 
Flevisse,  et  gelidis  baec  evolvisse  sub  antris, 
Mulcentem  tigres^  et  agentem  carmine  quercus. — lb.  607 


THE   PLAINT   OF   PHILOMEL      131 

Volveret,  Eurydicen  vox  ipsa  et  frigida  lingua, 
Ah  miseram  Eurydicen,  anima  fugiente  vocabat; 
Eurydicen  toto  referebant  flumine  ripae.* 

This,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  a  description 
given  to  Aristseus  by  Proteus ;  had  it  proceeded 
from  the  poet  in  his  own  character,  the  excess 
would  have  been  more  pardonable. 

Qualis  populea,  etc.^ 

The  poplar  is  not  the  most  likely  tree  for  a 
nightingale  to  build  her  nest  in,  and  indeed  it  is 
probable  that  no  instance  of  it  ever  occurred.  She 
is  always  in  "shadiest  covert  hid,"^  and  her  nest 
near  the  ground.  The  beauty  of  the  passage 
depends  in  great  measure  on  our  construing  it  to 
signify  that  the  nest  itself  was  in  the  poplar,  though 
the  first  verse  does  not  express  it.  But  when 
we  come  to  the  words  ramoque  sedens,  then  we 
perceive  at  once  the  necessity  of  this  interpretation. 

So  Philomel  beneath  some  poplar''s  shade 
Bemoans  her  captive  brood  ;  the  cruel  hind 
Saw  them  unfledged,  and  took  them ;  but  all  night 
Grieves  she !  and,  sitting  on  the  bough,  runs  o'er 
Her  wretched  tale,  and  fills  the  woods  with  woe.* 

*  lb.  523.  Landor  makes  Home  Tooke  say  :  "  The  Homeric  simile 
of  the  nightingale,  and  the  silly  tale  of  a  head  speaking  when  it  was 
cut  off  and  rolling  down  a  river,  and  speaking  so  loud,  too,  as  to  make 
an  echo  on  the  banks,  is  puerile." — Works,  iv.  235. 

*  See  note  *  page  129. 

'  Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  iii.  39. 

*  These  five  lines  are  from  a  translation  of  Georgics,  iv.  464-615, 
which  Landor  wrote  in  1794,  when  he  was  an  undergraduate  at  Oxford. 
He  was  then  nineteen,  and  he  was  rusticated  the  same  year.     Forster 


132      COMPANIONSHIP   OF   BOOKS 

Sitting  on  the  bough  from  which  her  young 
were  taken.  Dryden,  Warton,  Sotheby,  and 
others  in  foreign  languages,  have  translated  the 
passage  without  its  principal  beauty.  It  is  singular 
that  Virgil,  so  attentive  an  observer  of  nature, 
should  place  the  nest  of  a  nightingale  in  a  poplar, 
where  it  never  builds,  and  should  represent  that 
bird  as  bemoaning  the  loss  of  its  young  aloud — 
Late  loca  questibus  implet — 

when  it  ceases  to  sing,  almost  entirely,  after  its 
young  are  hatched. 

I  am  convinced  that  nearly  all  of  what  Virgil 
has  imitated  from  Homer  were  the  exercises  of 
his  youth ;  and  that  those  critics  who  would 
institute  a  comparison  between  the  two  great 
poets,  act  unfairly  and  unwisely  by  adducing  these 
as  points  of  it.  The  best  translation  that  has 
ever  been  made  from  Homer  is  not  among  the 
many  in  Virgil,  but  was  immediately  before  the 
eyes  of  Virgil  in  Lucretius.  It  is  the  description 
of  the  habitations  of  the  gods : 

found  a  copy  of  the  translation^  in  manuscript,  with  the  date.  It  was 
not  included  in  the  volume  of  poetry  which  Landor  published  in  1795, 
but  was  printed  in  The  Examiner,  October  16,  1841,  with  a  note  in 
which  Landor  says :  "  This  has  always  been  called  the  masterpiece 
of  Virgil,  and  chosen  as  the  ground  of  competition  by  translators. 
Wordsworth's,  which  is  the  last,  is  among  the  worst ;  Dryden's  (who 
always  compensates  with  spirit  for  fidelity)  the  best ;  mine,  written  at 
college,  has  small  merit."  The  "  Descent  of  Orpheus,"  as  Landor  calls 
the  piece,  was  also  printed  in  The  People's  Journal,  January,  1847  ;  in 
Landor's  Dry  Sticks,  1858,  with  a  long  note  in  which  passages  from  the 
Commentary  reappear ;  and,  without  the  note,  in  Works,  1876,  viii. 
290.     See  also  Forster's  Landor,  i.  38. 


VIRGIL'S   DEBT   TO   HOMER       133 

Quae  neque  concutiunt  venti  neque  nubila  coeli 
Pervolitant  neque  nix  acri  concreta  pruina 
Cana  cadens  violat,  semperque  innubilis  aether 
Obtegit,  et  large  diiFuso  lumine  videt.^ 

Dr.  Jortin  has  highly  praised  these  verses, 
forgetting  that  the  original  is  in  the  Odyssea^ 
and  is  certainly  the  most  admirable  specimen  of 
Homer's  versification.  Lucretius  follows  him 
closely,  and  it  is  only  in  the  very  termination 
that  he  is  left  behind.  K^vKq  hU-mSeBpofjiev  alyXr)  is 
inimitable.  It  is  a  very  silly  and  stupid  business 
to  talk  of  the  moral  in  a  poem,  unless  it  be  a 
fable.  ^  A  good  epic,  or  a  good  tragedy,  or  a  good 
comedy,  will  inculcate  many  morals ;  but  if  any 
poem  should  rest  on  one  only,  it  would  soon 
become  tedious  and  insufferable. 

'  Lucretius,  iii.  18.  The  lines  are  not  quite  accurately  quoted.  See 
also  Landor's  Works,  iv.  95. 

*  OvXv/x7rc)i/8',  0^1  (pacrl  deSiu  (80s  d<T(f)a\€S  aid 
ffiHevai'    ovT    duffioiai  TivdcrafTai  ovTf  itot    ofiBpa 
8fVfTai  ovTf  ^iau  fimrikvaTai,  dXKa  /xd\'  aidpr) 
nenraTai  dv€<pf\oSy  XevKrj  8'  enibfSpofKV  atyXrj' 

Homer,  Odyssey,  vi.  42. 
In  the  Imaginary  Conversations  Landor  makes  Xerxes  say :  "  The 
same  singer  who  celebrated  the  valour  of  Achilles  hath  described  in 
another  poem  the  residence  of  these  gods  ;  where  they  lead  quiet  lives 
above  the  winds  and  tempests  ;  where  frost  never  binds  the  pure 
illimitable  expanse  ;  where  snow  never  whirls  around  ;  where  lightning 
never  quivers  ;  but  temperate  warmth  and  clearest  light  are  evermore 
around  them." — Works,  ii.  54.  Dr.  Jortin,  quoting  the  verses  from 
Lucretius,  wrote  :  "  If  any  one  thinks  that  Lucretius  ought  not  to  be 
placed  so  near  to  Virgil,  let  him  try  whether  he  can  find  better  lines  in 
Virgil  than  these." — Tracts,  Philological  and  Critical,  by  the  late  Rev. 
John  Jortin,  D.D.,  Archdeacon  of  London,  1790,  ii.  467. 

*  Much  of  this  and  the  next  two  paragraphs  was  afterwards  incor- 
porated in  the  Imaginary  Conversation  between  Southey  and  Landor. — 
Works,  iv.  434. 


134      COMPANIONSHIP   OF   BOOKS 

Homer  does  not  represent  the  anger  of  Achilles 
as  fatal  or  disastrous  to  that  hero ;  this  would  be 
poetical  justice ;  but  he  shows  the  evil  effects  of 
tyranny  in  alienating  a  great  and  elevated  soul 
from  the  common  cause  of  his  friends  and  country. 
In  the  Odyssea  he  shows  that  every  thing  yields 
to  constancy  and  perseverance,  but  he  does  not 
propose  to  show  it,  and  there  are  other  morals  not 
less  obvious.  Why  should  the  whole  machinery 
of  the  largest  poem  be  brought  out  to  establish  a 
truth,  which  a  single  verse  would  inculcate  more 
plainly  and  more  memorably?  In  epic  and 
dramatic  poetry,  it  is  action  and  not  moral  that 
is  most  regarded.  The  feelings  and  exploits  of 
the  principal  hero  should  excite  the  principal 
interest.  The  two  greatest  of  human  works  are 
here  defective.^  Agamemnon  is  leader  of  the 
Greeks  in  the  expedition  against  Troy,  to  avenge 
the  cause  of  his  brother  Menelaus.  Yet  not  only 
Achilles,  but  Hector  and  Sarpedon,  and  Paris 
himself,  engage  our  affections  much  more  than 
Agamemnon.  In  the  Paradise  Lost  no  principal 
character  seems  to  have  been  intended.  There  is 
neither  truth  nor  wit,  however,  in  saying  that 
Satan  is  hero  of  the  piece.  It  is  Adam  who  acts 
and  suffers  the  most,  and  on  whom  the  result  and 
consequences  have  most  influence  ;  this  constitutes 
him  the  main  character,  although  Eve  is  the  more 

"  I  mean  the  Iliad  and  Paradise  Lost." — Landor,  Works,  iv.  434. 


INCOMPARABLE   HOMER  135 

interesting,  Satan  the  more  energetic,  and  on 
whom  perhaps  the  greater  force  of  poetry  is  dis- 
played. The  Creator  and  His  angels  are  all 
secondary  characters. 

Must  we  not  confess  that  every  great  poem 
hitherto  has  been  defective  in  plan,  and  even  that 
each  has  been  more  so  than  its  predecessor  ?  Such 
stupendous  genius,  so  much  fancy,  and  so  much 
vigour  of  intellect,  never  were  united  as  in 
Paradise  Lost;  yet  it  is  neither  so  correct  nor  so 
varied  as  the  Iliad,  nor,  however  important  the 
moral,  so  interesting  or  so  attractive.  The  very 
moral  itself  is  the  reason  why  it  wearies  even  those 
critics  who  insist  on  the  necessity  of  it,  and  its 
importance  is  the  reason  why  it  is  so  perpetually 
urged  and  inculcated.  It  is  founded  on  an  event 
believed  by  nearly  all  nations,  certainly  by  all  who 
read  the  poem ;  it  lays  down  a  principle  which 
concerns  every  man's  welfare,  and  a  fact  which 
every  man's  experience  confirms :  that  infinite 
misery  may  arise  from  apparently  small  offences. 
But  will  any  one  say  that,  in  a  poetical  view,  our 
certainty  of  moral  truth,  in  this  position,  is  an 
equivalent  for  the  general  uncertainty  which  is  the 
leading  character,  the  hero  of  the  piece  ? 

In  proportions,  in  characters,  in  interest,  in 
action,  Homer  is  incomparable !  It  appears  as  if 
no  epic  poet  knew  or  thought  any  thing  about 
proportion.     Nothing  can  be  more  gibbous  than 


136      COMPANIONSHIP   OF   BOOKS 

the  jEneid ;  it  is,  without  exception,  the  most  dis- 
proportioned  poem  in  existence.^  In  others  we 
are  Hable  to  be  impatient  of  the  episodes ;  here 
we  are  impatient  of  nearly  all  the  rest.  But  the 
exquisite  versification,  the  tenderness  of  sentiment, 
and  the  little  descriptive  scenes,  produce  through- 
out an  unreluctant  delay.  There  is  somewhat  of 
mild  attachment  to  the  poet  in  the  midst  of  our 
aversion  for  his  hero :  and  we  love  him  the  more 
the  oftener  we  say  we  never  can  forgive  him. 

Had  Virgil  lived  to  finish  the  uEneid,  still  its 
radical  fault  could  not  have  been  corrected.  The 
episodes  are  the  best  and  principal  part.  This  is 
so  great  an  absurdity  as  to  appear  a  contradiction. 
No  proportions  are  observed ;  the  hero's  narrative 
is  more  important,  and  even  more  poetical,  than 
the  poet's ;  yet  the  effect  is  not  dramatic.  There  is 
more  variety  in  Homer,  and  more  order.  Achilles 
is  an  imperfect  but  attractive  character.  Such  are 
most  proper  for  poetry.  It  abhors  whatever  is 
measured,  or  uses  such  things  merely  for  its 
vehicles.  Cato  was  consistent,  and  Lucan  was 
not  without  some  powers,  yet  the  Pharsalia  is  an 
intolerable  burden.  I  say  nothing  of  Addison's 
tragedy.  His  genius  would  not  support  him  even 
in  a  farce.  He  failed  in  whatever  bore  an  affinity 
to  poetry. 

'  "  The  ^neid,  I  venture  to  affirm,  is  the  most  misshapen  of  epics, 
an  epic  of  episodes  :  for  these  constitute  the  greater  and  better  part." 
— LandoBj  Works,  iv.  105. 


ELEMENTS   OF  THE   SUBLIME    137 

Inequality  of  character  is  necessary  to  the  sub- 
lime :  in  no  period  will  that  of  Washington  be 
so  dramatic  as  that  of  M.  Antony.  Take  away 
the  inequalities  of  the  Alps,  and  where  is  their 
sublimity?^  Steadiness  and  uniformity  are  those 
qualities  by  which  a  man  comes  nearer  to  the 
image  of  his  Creator,  but  we  desire  to  see  repre- 
sented to  us  men  who  partake  in  our  imperfections 
and  infirmities.  The  greater  they  are  in  other 
respects,  the  more  pleased  are  we ;  because,  while 
we  find  that  we  resemble  them  in  the  little,  we 
flatter  ourselves  that  we  may  resemble  them  in 
the  great.  JEneas  was  a  Roman  of  Virgil's  own 
age.  He  was  little  better  than  Augustus.  No 
people  was  ever  so  far  removed  from  all  our  ideas 
of  what  is  romantic  as  the  Roman.  Strange 
circumstances,  and  foreign  climates,  nurturing  and 
forcing  a  peculiarity  of  growth,  have  sometimes, 
but  not  often,  taken  off  a  little  from  the  squareness 
of  their  character.  In  M.  Antony  the  scene  and 
circumstances  were  romantic.  Sudden  and  violent 
vicissitudes  of  fortune,  and  the  predominancy  of 
those  passions  to  which  in  some  degree  every  one 
is  subject,  and  the  excesses  of  which  almost  every 
one  pardons,  are  the  very  things  which  a  poet,  if 
he  cannot  find,  wiU  feign.  Sertorius,  too,  is  con- 
templated in  a  country  not  less  abounding  in  fable 

1  "  Level  the  Alps  one  with  another,  and  where  is  their  sublimity  ?  " 
— Landob,  Works,  iv.  91. 

18 


138      COMPANIONSHIP   OF   BOOKS 

and  romance  than  the  garden  of  the  Hesperides. 

Pelayo,  Ruy  Diaz,  Cortes,  have  inspired  genuine 

poetry ' ;    and  it  will  require  but  little  time  to 

remove    whatever    is    common    to    others    from 

Palafox,  the   hero   of   Zaragoza.      Even  now  he 

appears  far  above  them,  and  is  surrounded,  if  I 

may  use  the  expression,  by  a  luminous  atmosphere 

of  his   own.     The   bigots   of  faction   have   asked 

indeed  what  he  contended  for,  and  whether  it  were 

not  for   arbitrary  power.     He  who   conferred  by 

his    own   authority  the   distinctions    he    thought 

proper,  for  services  which  he  himself  could  best 

appreciate,  was  somewhat  more  than  a  partizan  of 

a  family.     He  could  not  but  know  that  the  poorest 

and  most  indigent  defender  of  Zaragoza  was  more 

worthy  of  power  and  honour  than  a  Charles  or  a 

Ferdinand.^     But  after  all,  wide  is  the  difference 

between  voluntary  obedience  to  a  legitimate  and 

hereditary  king,   and   cowardly   submission    to   a 

vulgar  and  impudent  intruder.     Sentiments   may 

not  be  founded  on  reason,  and  yet  may  be  both 

amiable    and    grand ;    founded    on    honour   they 

must  be,  to  be  either.     A  want  of  this  disgusts 

us  in  JEneas ;   and  those  who  praise   Virgil   for 

his  judgment,  praise  him  for  that  very  quality  in 

which  he  is  more  conspicuously  than  in  any  other 

the  inferior  of  Homer. 

*  By  Robert  Southey. 

*  Charles  IV.  of  Spain  abdicated  in  March,  1806,  in  favour  of  his  son, 
Ferdinand  VII. 


PATHOS   OF  VIRGIL  139 

[Page  89. — "  At  Antwerp  we  finished  the  eighth 
book  of  the  JEneid.  Of  all  the  passages  relating 
to  Evander  and  his  son,  Mr.  Fox  was  very  fond." 

Page  91. — "  The  tenderness  of  Mr.  Fox's  heart 
manifested  itself  by  his  always  dwelling,  in  poetry, 
upon  domestic  and  aiFecting  traits  of  character, 
when  happily  pourtrayed  by  the  author." 

Page  92. — "  This  classical  taste  and  fondness  for 
the  tender  parts  of  the  uEneid  endured  to  the 
closing  moments  of  Mr.  Fox's  Hfe."] 

Mr.  Fox  with  great  reason  admired  those  pas- 
sages most  which  are  most  pathetic.  In  this 
and  in  the  harmony  of  his  verse,  Virgil  is,  and 
will  for  ever  be,  unrivalled.  To  blame  him  or 
any  other  poet  for  his  political  opinions  is  absurd, 
unless  those  opinions  take  an  undue  share  in  his 
compositions.  Then  they  are  subject  to  the  same 
censure  as  any  thing  else  would  be,  doing  the 
same.  An  honourable  mind  will  pay  nearly  an 
equal  tribute  of  admiration  and  applause  to  Sir 
Philip  Sidney  and  to  Algernon.  My  heart  is  as 
much  with  the  one  as  vnlh.  the  other;  my  reason 
not.  It  appears  to  me,  however,  that  the  senti- 
ments of  Virgil  were  greatly  more  in  favour  of 
Julius  and  Augustus  than  of  the  old  government, 
and  I  blame  neither  his  heart  nor  his  understand- 
ing. Pompey,  and  such  venal  men  as  the  senate, 
were  utterly  unfit  to  govern.  It  is  childish  to 
blame  an  usurper;  those  only  are  to  be  blamed 


140      COMPANIONSHIP  OF  BOOKS 

who  render  it  desirable  or  tolerable  that  any  should 
exist.  Cromwell  and  William  III.  were  requisite 
to  England,  and  France  without  a  Bonaparte 
would  have  been  desolate  and  undone.  Usurpers 
retard  the  extinction  of  nations  by  the  very 
animosities  they  excite ;  demagogues  and  political 
adventurers  tend  to  hasten  it,  by  the  indifference 
they  produce  in  consequence  of  their  declamatory 
falsehoods  and  unstable  conduct.  The  republic 
of  Rome,  with  a  Pompey  or  a  Crassus  at  the 
head,  would  have  been  soon  dismembered.  Julius 
and  his  fortunate  successor  knew  where  to  select 
such  officers,  both  in  war  and  peace,  as  give 
stability  to  power  and  constancy  to  fortune.  It 
is  grievous  to  recollect  how  many  good  and 
patriotic  men  suffered,  and  hardly  less  so  to 
consider  how  many  servile  and  corrupt  escaped. 

[Page  150. — "  At  Brussels,  having  finished  the 
^neid,  our  readings  in  Latin  ceased." 

Pages  155-7. — "  Here  we  heard  of  Monsieur 
Chauvelin,  who  was  said  to  Hve  a  retired  life  in 
Burgundy.  The  remembrance  of  this  gentleman, 
in  1802,^  brought  with  it  many  important  con- 
siderations. Had  Lord  Grenville  possessed  the 
conciliating  manners  and  enlarged  views   of  Mr. 

^  Trotter  means  the  remembrance,  in  1802,  of  what  took  place 
between  the  Marquis  de  Chauvelin  and  Lord  Grenville  in  1793.  On 
January  24,  1793,  three  days  after  the  execution  of  Louis  XVI., 
Grenville,  Pitt's  Foreign  Secretary,  notified  to  Chauvelin  that  his 
functions  as  ambassador,  suspended  for  some  time  past,  were  now 
terminated,  and  that  he  must  leave  the  country  within  eight  days. 


LORD   GRENVILLE'S   MANNERS     141 

Fox ;  had  the  minister  for  foreign  affairs  in 
England,  or  the  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
who  was  minister  for  all  affairs,  been  capable  of 
rationally  weighing  the  events  of  futurity  with 
intuitive  judgment,  and  of  viewing,  with  the 
benignant  eyes  of  a  true  statesman,  the  effer- 
vescence and  agitations  of  a  long-oppressed  nation ; 
nay,  had  the  ministers  of  the  day,  in  1793,  pos- 
sessed the  hearts  of  Englishmen  of  the  old  school, 
they  would  have  venerated  the  struggle  for  liberty, 
made  by  a  sister  nation,  which  had  been  long 
ridiculed  and  despised  for  its  subservience  to  a 
grand  monarque,  and  they  would  respectfully  have 
said,  every  nation  is  free  at  all  times  to  choose  her 
own  government.  .  .  .  Had  such  been  Lord  Gren- 
ville's  language,  on  the  momentous  day  when  he 
ignominiously  dismissed  M.  Chauvelin,  what  seas 
of  blood  would  have  been  spared  to  France  and  all 
Europe  I "] 

Page  156. — "  Had  Lord  Grenville  possessed 
the  conciliating  manners  and  enlarged  views  of 
Mr.  Fox,"  etc. 

The  sole  views  of  Lord  Grenville  and  his  family 
have  been  to  amass  large  fortunes.  No  means, 
public  or  private,  have  been  neglected  by  them. 
Hence  it  is  that  these  new  people  overtop  all, 
or  nearly  all,  the  ancient  nobility  of  the  kingdom. 
Having  said  thus  much,  I  shall  not  be  accused  of 
flattery  if  I  deliver  it  as  my  opinion  that  he  is 
a  much  wiser  man  than  Mr.  Pitt  or  Mr.  Fox. 
However  proud  and  arrogant,  he  is  not  reluctant 


142      COMPANIONSHIP  OF  BOOKS 

to  change  a  wrong  notion  for  a  right  one.  He 
is  more  calm  than  Mr.  Pitt,  more  consistent 
than  Mr.  Fox.  He  has  no  unworthy  favourites, 
in  pubHc  life  or  private.  His  eloquence  is  never 
captivating,  but  always  manly.  He  neither  drags 
along  the  bottom  the  involved  toils  of  Fox,  nor 
allures  with  the  false  lights  of  Pitt.  The  propriety 
of  his  conduct  towards  the  ambassador  of  France, 
and  the  policy  of  entering  into  a  war  with  the 
republic,  have  been  more  than  enough  discussed. 
Burke,  the  only  member  of  Parliament  whose 
views  were  extensive,  and  whose  reading  was 
all  turned  to  practical  account,  was  more  violent 
than  even  I^ord  Grenville  for  a  declaration  of 
hostilities.  His  unrivalled  eloquence  was  fatal  to 
our  glory ;  it  silenced  our  renown  for  justice  and 
for  wisdom,  undermined  our  internal  prosperity, 
and  invaded  our  domestic  peace.  He  was  equally 
clear  and  magnificent  in  the  development  and 
display  of  his  grand  principles,  but  he  hurried 
through  passages  which  he  never  had  explored, 
and  the  phantom  he  was  pursuing  struck  the 
lamp  out  of  his  hand. 

[Pa^e  160.— "We  left  Brussels  on  the  17th  of 
August,  and  found  the  day  extremely  hot ;  we 
recurred  again  to  Tom  Jones,  and  forgot  the  little 
inconveniences  of  the  journey.  We  were  now 
drawing  to  the  end  of  our  tour,  and  had  been 
much  indebted  to  the  genius  of  Fielding  for 
amusement  and  instruction."] 


THE   ARABIAN   NIGHTS  143 

Tage  161. — ''{Tom  Jones  is  also,  with  all  his 
indiscretions  on  his  head,  far  preferable  to  those 
much  more  dangerous  personages  in  modern  novels, 
whose  voluptuous  authors  seem  to  conceive  that 
libertine  immorality,  clothed  in  eloquent  language, 
are  sure  to  gain  approbation  and  support.  Mr.  Fox 
was  fond  of  novels,  but  not  of  the  latter  class. 
Their  verbiage,  and  want  of  fideUty  to  nature,  were 
sure  to  disgust  him.  I  have  read  to  him,  at  times, 
a  great  many,  but  none  of  this  description.]  In 
The  Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments  he  delighted 
much."^ 

I  have  always  had  a  strong  and  irresistible 
curiosity  to  discover  what  opinions  were  enter- 
tained on  the  first  appearance  of  works  which 
afterwards  acquired  the  greatest  celebrity,  and 
have  generally  found  that  this  celebrity  has  been 
of  gradual  and  slow  growth.  In  the  correspon- 
dence of  Swift  and  Pope,  The  Arabian  Nights 
are  mentioned  with  contempt.^  Gray  speaks  in 
like  manner  of  Rousseau's  Heloise.^    These  works 

*  ''And  who  would  not?"  Trotter  asks.  Landor  certainly  did. 
Writing  to  Lady  Blessington  on  January  13,  1835,  he  said :  "  The 
Arabian  Nights  have  lost  none  of  their  charms  for  me.  All  the  learned 
and  wiseacres  in  England  cried  out  against  this  wonderful  work,  upon 
its  first  appearance ;  Gray  among  the  rest.  Yet  I  doubt  whether  any 
man,  except  Shakespeare,  has  afforded  so  much  delight,  if  we  open  our 
hearts  to  receive  it.  The  author  of  The  Arabian  Nights  was  the  greatest 
benefactor  the  East  ever  had,  not  excepting  Mahomet." — Madden's 
Lady  Blessington,  ii.  380. 

'  "  And  now,  sir,"  Bishop  Atterbury  wrote  to  Pope,  in  1720,  "  for 
your  Arabian  tales.  Ill  as  I  have  been  almost  ever  since  they  came 
to  hand,  I  have  read  as  much  of  them  as  I  ever  shall  read  while  I  live. 
Indeed,  they  do  not  please  my  taste." 

'  Writing  to  Dr.  Wharton,  in  1761,  Gray  said:  "The  Nouvelle 
HiUme  cruelly  disappointed  me." 


144      COMPANIONSHIP   OF   BOOKS 

are  perhaps  read  with  more  universal  delight  than 
any  others,  ancient  or  modern.  Gray  himself,  and 
Cowper,  the  two  most  popular  of  our  poets,  have 
received  abundance  both  of  invective  and  advice 
from  persons  whose  alacrity  of  zeal  and  weight 
of  judgment  are  alike  forgotten.  It  is  amusing 
to  look  into  reviews  of  literature,  where  a  series 
can  be  found,  and  to  see  the  remarks  made  at 
the  moment,  on  Hume,  and  Robertson,  and 
Goldsmith.  They  are  treated  as  somewhat  less 
than  equals  by  the  lowest  order  of  literary  men, 
and  if  any  thing  should  be  spoken  well  of,  the 
commendation  is  followed  by  hints  and  sugges- 
tions ;  instead  of  deference  and  homage,  they 
show  encouragement,  complacency,  and  favour. 

Johnson  seems  to  have  fared  better  with  these 
people  in  his  lifetime.  Since  his  decease,  those 
whose  age  and  poetry  were  equally  in  the  sere, 
the  yellow  leaf,  have  treated  him  less  respectfully ; 
1  mean  a  coterie  in  his  native  city,  indulging  that 
sickly  and  nauseating  petulance,  which  finds  in 
its  ill  humour  a  refreshment,  if  not  a  satisfaction, 
and  fancies  in  itself,  if  not  all  its  pristine  vigour, 
yet  a  liveliness  and  spirit,  when  it  is  supported 
by  patients  of  the  same  disease.  Dr.  Darwin,^ 
a  man  of  talents  and  a  poet,  is  said  to  have 
countenanced  this  worse  than  folly.     He  was  often 

*  Dr.  Erasmus  Darwin,  physician  and  poet  (1731-1802),  author  of 
The  Botanic  Garden,  etc.,  and  grandfather  of  Charles  Darwin 


A  CREDULOUS   BLUE-STOCKING  145 

a  great  latitudinarian  in  absurdity,  but  he  never 
went  so  far,  although  very  good-humoured  and 
jocose,  as  when  he  told  the  too  credulous  Miss 
Seward^  that  she  had  "invented  an  epic  elegy'' 
In  fact,  no  writer  was  ever  less  original  or  more 
fantastic.  Her  verses  are  bloated  with  expletives, 
and  crowded  with  idle  and  incongruous  images ; 
and  there  is  no  other  difference  between  her 
poetry  and  her  prose  than  that  her  prose  has 
somewhat  more  of  stiffness  and  transposition  to 
punish  it  for  its  escape  from  rhyme ;  there  is 
about  as  much,  indeed,  as  between  the  stocks  and 
the  pillory.  Johnson,  with  a  graciousness  unusual 
to  him,^  and  certainly  with  much  violence  to  his 
nature,  did  actually  conceal  from  her  every  harsher 
feature  of  his  proud  and  provoked  contempt. 
Such  characters  as  his  are  to  be  treated  with 
respect  and  deference  ;  they  can  seldom  gain  any 
thing  else ;  and  surely  a  kind  feeling  is  the  least 
costly   offering    we   can    make.      Every   man    of 


*  Anna  Seward  (1747-1809),  a  noted  blue-stocking,  wrote  "  Memoirs 
of  Dr.  Darwin,"  in  which  she  claimed  to  have  written  the  first  fifty 
lines  of  his  Botanic  Garden.  Landor's  dislike  of  this  lady  is  referred 
to  in  Forster's  biography,  i.  111.  According  to  Landor,  the  feud  began 
when  his  remark  that  he  preferred  a  pretty  woman  to  a  literary  one 
came  to  her  ears,  and  it  grew  acute  when  she  declared  that  nobody 
but  the  author  of  Gebir  could  have  written  the  review  of  that  poem  in 
The  Critical  Review. 

^  "  Madam,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  when  Miss  Seward  mentioned  to 
him  The  Columbiade,  an  epic  poem  by  Mme.  du  Boccage,  "  there  is  not 
anything  equal  to  your  description  of  the  sea  round  the  North  Pole, 
in  your  ode  on  the  death  of  Captain  Cook. " — Boswell's  Johnson,  Globe 
ed.,  p.  653. 

19 


146      COMPANIONSHIP  OF   BOOKS 

genius  hears  them  mentioned  with  the  same 
interest  and  anxiety  as  if  they  were  his  kindred. 
Reviewers  and  magazine-men,  the  linkboys  and 
scavengers  of  hterature,  treat  them  Hke  inferiors 
and  dependents ;  and  indeed  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  their  worldly  welfare  is  affected  by  the 
representations  of  these  men.  Of  late  years,  if 
any  one  had  paid  any  attention  to  such  people, 
one  would  imagine  that  Dr.  Johnson  was  hardly 
on  a  level  with  Dr.  Drake,  and  that  Aristotle 
only  kept  a  box  for  Mr.  Fellowes.^ 

This  reverend  gentleman  having  settled  religion 
to  his  mind,  but  unhappily — 

Castalia  interdictus  aqua,  interdictus  et  igni 
Pierio — 

driven  out  from  among  the  poets,  is  retaliating 
on  them  as  their  judge.  He  v^nrites,  or  did  write, 
for  I  know  not  whether  the  work  survives  his 
hand,  in  The  Critical  Review  ^ ;  strange  successor 
to  the  gentle,  but  high-minded  Southey ! 

[Page  179. — "  On  the  score  of  religion  I  perceived 

^  Dr.  Nathan  Drake  (1766-1836),  literary  essayist  and  physician, 
published  in  1805  Essays  illustrative  of  the  Tatler,  Spectator,  and  Guardian ; 
and,  in  1810,  The  Gleaner :  a  series  of  periodical  essays.  His  work  on 
Shakespeare  and  his  Times  appeared  in  1817  (Dictionary  of  National 
Biography).  Dr.  Robert  Fellowes  (1771-1847),  edited  The  Critical 
Review  from  1804  to  1811.  He  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Dr.  Parr, 
and  one  of  the  promoters  of  the  London  University. 

^  "The  little  man  who  followed  you  [Southey]  in  The  Critical  Review, 
poor  Robin  Fellowes,  whose  pretensions  widen  every  smile  his  im- 
becility has  created." — Landob,  Imaginary  Conversations  (1824),  i.  40. 
The  passage  is  slightly  altered  in  Works,  1876,  iv.  22. 


MR.   FOX'S   RELIGION  147 

that  he  (Fox)  did  not  merely  tolerate,  for  that 
word  ill  applied  to  his  disposition  on  sacred  matters, 
but  was  truly  benignant.  .  .  .  There  never  escaped 
from  his  Hps  one  disrespectful  word  regarding 
religion ;  never  one  doubtful  smile  was  seen  on 
his  countenance  in  a  place  of  worship,  or  the 
slightest  derogation  from  a  solemn  and  respectful 
regard  for  all  around  him."  ^] 

I  have  nothing  to  say  on  any  man's  religion ; 
and  indeed  where  a  man  is  malignant  in  his  words 
or  actions,  his  creed  is  unimportant  to  others,  and 
unavailing  to  himself.  But  I  grieve  whenever  a 
kind  heart  loses  any  portion  of  its  comforts,  and 
Dr.  Parr,^  I  am  certain,  felt  the  deepest  sorrow 
that  Mr.  Fox  wanted  any  which  Christianity  could 
give.  Whether  in  the  established  church  the  last 
consolations  of  religion  are  quite  so  impressive 
and  efficacious  ;  whether  they  always  are  adminis- 
tered with  the  same  earnestness  and  tenderness,  as 

^  This  is  no  doubt  the  passage  in  Trotter's  book  that  suggested  the 
following  paragraph^  which,  however,  appears  to  have  been  misplaced. 

*  ''I  have  often  remarked,"  Dr.  Parr  wrote,  "^that  upon  religious 
subjects  he  did  not  talk  irreverently,  and  generally  appeared  unwilling 
to  talk  at  all  before  strangers  or  friends.  .  .  .  Yet,  from  conversations 
which  have  incidentally  passed  between  him  and  myself,  I  am  induced 
to  think  that,  according  to  the  views  he  had  taken  of  Christianity,  he 
did  not  find  any  decisive  evidence  for  several  doctrines  which  many 
of  the  wisest  among  the  sons  of  men  have  believed  with  the  utmost 
sincerity  and  defended  with  the  most  powerful  aids  of  criticism,  history, 
and  philosophy.  But  he  occasionally  professed,  and  from  his  known 
veracity  we  may  be  sure  that  he  inwardly  felt,  the  highest  approbation 
of  its  pure  and  benevolent  precepts." — Characters  of  C.  J.  Fox,  i.  220. 
Trotter,  describing  the  scene  at  Fox's  death-bed,  says  :  "  Mr.  Bouverie, 
a  young  clergyman  then  in  the  house,  was  brought  in.  Prayers  were 
read.  Mr.  Fox  was  quiet  and  resigned,  but  evidently  disliked 
speaking." — Memoirs,  p.  463. 


148      COMPANIONSHIP  OF    BOOKS 

the  parent  church  administers  them,  is  a  question 
which  I  should  deem  it  irreverend  to  discuss. 
Certainly,  he  is  happiest  in  his  death,  whose 
fortitude  is  most  confiding  and  most  peaceful ; 
whose  composure  rests  not  merely  on  the  suppres- 
sion of  doubts  and  fears  ;  whose  pillow  is  raised 
up,  whose  bosom  is  lightened,  whose  mortality 
is  loosened  from  him,  by  an  assemblage  of  all 
consolatory  hopes,  indescribable,  indistinguishable, 
indefinite,  yet  surer  than  ever  were  the  senses. 

Page  170. — "  [I  must  not  omit  to  mention 
another  book  I  read  a  little  on  the  road,  and  at 
Brussels.  I  allude  to  the  Orlando  Furioso  of 
Ariosto.  Of  this  work  Mr.  Fox  was  excessively 
fond ;  and  as  I  agreed  with  him  in  this  partiality, 
the  reading  some  stanzas,  and  conversing  on  the 
beauties  of  this  delightful  book,  was  another  source 
of  gratification  not  to  be  unnoticed  in  giving  a 
sketch  of  our  short  tour.]  Mr.  Fox  held  Ariosto 
very  high,  thinking  him  equal  in  some  respects  to 
Virgil,  and  even  his  greatest  of  favourites,  Homer." 

Mr.  Fox,  in  another  place,^  mentions  Homer 
and  Ariosto  for  "  their  wonderful  facility  and  the 
apparent  absence  of  all  study  in  their  expression, 
which,"  he  says,  "is  almost  peculiar  to  them." 
How  that  can  be  apparent  which  is  absent  I  leave 
to  the  second-sighted,  but  I  must  remark  that  in 

^  In  a  letter  to  Trotter  quoted  on  p.  143  of  the  Memoirs,  Mr.  Fox 
said :  "  Homer  and  Ariosto  have  always  been  my  favourites  :  there  is 
something  so  delightful  in  their  wonderful  facility,  and  the  apparent 
absence  of  all  study  in  their  expression,  which  is  almost  peculiar  to 
them." 


HOMER  AND   SHAKESPEARE     149 

poetry  there  are  two  kinds  of  facility,  and  opposite 
in  their  nature  ;  one  arises  from  vigour,  the  other 
from  neghgence.  In  Homer  and  Shakespeare  we 
shall  invariably  find  the  best  parts  remarkable  for 
a  facility  of  expression.  As  the  purest  and  noblest 
of  the  metals  is  also  the  most  plastic,  in  like 
manner  whatever  is  in  poetry  the  noblest  and  the 
purest  takes  a  "form  and  pressure"  the  most 
easily  and  perfectly. 

Ariosto  and  Ovid  are  negligent  ;  both  are 
amiable,  both  are  ingenious,  both  are  good  poets, 
but  neither  of  them  can  aspire  to  the  highest 
rank,  or  to  any  comparison  with  Homer.  It 
appears  rather  strange  that  Mr.  Fox  should  not 
have  perceived  this  easiness  in  Ovid,  and  in 
Hesiod.  The  latter  is  a  very  indifferent  poet,  but 
he  enjoys  no  inconsiderable  reputation.  His  verse 
is  the  most  fluent  of  all,  yet  his  sentences  are 
seldom  harmonious.  We  read  that  he  contended 
with  Homer,  and  gained  the  prize.  If  they 
contended,  this  is  not  unlikely  to  have  happened ; 
for  the  second  best  has  always  more  favourers 
than  the  best. 

To  write  a  description  of  a  shield^  is  an  idle 
labour,  in  which  the  imitators,  and  perhaps   the 

>  Writing  to  Trotter  from  St.  Anne's  Hill,  Mr.  Fox  said :  "  In 
Hesiod  .  .  .  there  is  much  that  is  tiresome.  Perhaps  the  work  which 
is  most  generally  considered  as  not  his,  I  mean  the  'A<r7rtr,  is  the  one 
that  has  most  poetry  in  it.  It  is  very  good^  and  to  say  that  it  is 
inferior  to  Homer's  and  Virgil's  shields^  is  not  saying  much  against  it." 

Memoirt,  p.  496 


150      COMPANIONSHIP   OF   BOOKS 

predecessors  of  Homer,  tried  their  skill.  That  of 
Achilles,  in  the  Iliad,^  being  so  admired,  is  a  proof 
how  much  more  conspicuous,  and  indeed  attrac- 
tive to  the  generality,  are  the  blemishes  and 
excrescences  of  a  poem,  than  its  action  and 
symmetry.  Poetry  was  more  generally  attended 
to  in  the  age  of  Homer  than  in  ours,  and  many 
would  be  anxious  to  know,  exactly  and  minutely, 
what  armour  a  goddess  had  bestowed  on  her  son, 
since  by  that  very  armour  he  had  reflected  on  their 
country  the  highest  splendour  of  her  military 
glory ;  so  that  a  description  of  it,  although  no 
ornament  to  the  Iliad,  might  be  considered  as 
hardly  a  redundancy  or  a  fault.  Pope  and  others 
borrowed  their  admiration  of  it,  without  possessing 
or  knowing  where  were  deposited  the  title-deeds 
on  which  it  was  founded.  But  it  is  better  to  be 
blinded  a  good  deal  by  veneration  than  ever  so 
little  by  jealousy. 

But  in  the  passage  I  have  quoted  there  is  surely 
a  piece  of  pleasantry.  Mr.  Charles  Fox,  member 
of  parliament  for  Westminster,  and  for  several 
weeks,  I  believe  I  might  venture  to  say  months, 
one  of  the  king's  ministers,  was  pleased  to  enter- 
tain a  high  opinion  of  Ariosto,  countenanced  him 
as  a  person  of  real  facetiousness,  and  admitted  him 
occasionally  into  an  equal  share  of  favour  with  his 
greatest  of  favourites.  Homer  I 

*  Iliad,  xviii.  474. 


ARIOSTO   AND   TASSO  151 

Ariosto  is  almost  as  far  below  Homer  as  he  is 
above  Spenser/  He  may  be  ranked  among  the 
first  writers  of  romance.  His  versification  is  very 
easy,  but  also  very  negligent.  He  bears  no  re- 
semblance whatsoever  to  Virgil  or  to  Homer,  and 
comes  nearer  to  Ovid  than  to  any  other  of  the 
ancients.  But,  although  the  language  of  Ovid  is 
sometimes  too  familiar,  it  hardly  ever  is  prosaic. 
There  is  always  a  something,  however  little  it  may 
be,  which  gives  it  the  character  of  poetry.  In 
Ariosto  there  are  at  least  a  thousand  verses  which 
have  nothing  to  distinguish  them  from  prose, 
except  the  corresponding  rhyme  ;  perhaps  if  I  said 
three  thousand  I  should  not  exceed  the  truth. 
The  description  of  the  palace  of  Atlantes^  is  a 
wonderful  type  of  the  French  revolution.  Could 
this  possibly  have  escaped  Mr.  Fox? 

There  is  in  Itahan  poetry  another  passage  so  very 
curious  and  remarkable,  so  exact  and  complete  a 
prophecy  of  the  same  event,  that  I  cannot  help  in- 
serting it,  however  much  I  would  avoid  quotations : 

La  Francia,  adoma  or  da  natura  e  d'arte 
Squallida  allor  vedrassi  in  manto  negro ; 
Ne  d''empio  oltraggio  inviolata  parte, 
Ne  loco  del  furor  rimaso  integro : 

'  Mr.  Fox  had  written  to  Trotter:  "I  am  quite  pleased  at  your 
liking  Ariosto  so  much  ;  though  indeed  I  foresaw  you  would,  from  the 
great  delight  you  expressed  at  Spenser,  who  is  certainly  inferior  to 
him,  though  very  excellent  too.  Tasso  I  think  below  both  of  them." — 
Memoirs,  496. 

'  Ariosto,  Orlando  Furioso,  iv. 


152      COMPANIONSHIP  OF   BOOKS 

Vedova  la  Corona ;  afflitte  e  sparte 

Le  sue  fortune ;  e  '1  Regno  oppresso  ed  egi'o 

E  di  Stirpe  real  percosso  e  tronco 

II  piu  bel  ramo;  e  fulminate  il  tronco. 

Gierus.,  lib.  20.^ 

There  is  a  splendid  confusion  in  Ariosto,  which 
makes  his  imagination  seem  richer  and  more 
extensive  than  it  is.  It  certainly  is  not  more 
vigorous  nor  more  various  than  Boccaccio's,  to 
whom  he  is  inferior  both  in  the  humorous  and 
the  pathetic.  I  cannot  but  think  him  somewhat, 
though  httle  inferior  to  Ovid.  The  latter  has  not 
only  more  of  the  true  epic,  but  an  equal  share  of 
that  which  Ariosto  most  excelled  in — variety  of 
subject  and  exuberance  of  fancy.  His  epistles 
abound  in  touches  of  nature,  equally  pure,  dis- 
criminating, and  true,  and  what  they  have  been 
most  condemned  for,  but  which  is  among  their 
highest  merits,  that  sophistry  of  argument  which 
follows  inventive  love,  excusing  its  errors  and 
exasperating  its  grief.  In  these,  however,  there  are 
two  verses  which  ought  rather  to  have  come  into 
the  mind  of  Ariosto  than  of  Ovid : 

Sic  ubi  fata  vocant  udis  abjectus  in  herbis 
Ad  vada  Maeandri  concinit  albus  olor.^ 

'  The  reference  should  be  to  Tasso's  Gerusalemme  Conquistata,  xx. 

*  Ovid,  Heroics,  vii.  1.  "  As  if  the  Fates,"  Landor  writes  in  another 
place,  ''were  busied  in  'calling  white  swans  !'  Ovid  never  composed 
any  such  trash." — Works,  viii.  412.  In  a  note,  not  reprinted,  in  the 
first  edition  of  the  Imaginary  Conversations,  he  remarks  that  many 
modern  critics  believe  the  two  lines  to  be  spurious,  and  that  some 
manuscripts  are  without  them  {Itnag.  Conv.,  1829,  iv.  264) 


VIRGIL'S   MELANCHOLY  153 

The    epistle    of    Dido    to   iEneas,   which    was 

perhaps   a  school    exercise,   and    is   certainly  the 

worst  poem  attributed  to  Ovid,  begins  with  this 

simily ;  ^  a  most  contemptible  one  indeed.     Even 

such  prose  as 

Lungo  sara  che  d'Alda  di  Sansogna 
Narri,  o  della  contessa  di  Celano, 
O  di  Bianca  Maria  di  Catalogna, 
O  della  figlia  del  re  Siciliano, 
O  della  bella  Lippa  di  Bologna,^  etc. 

is  rather  more  tolerable.  This  is  utterly  unneces- 
sary, but  the  other  is  violently  misplaced.  Poetry 
has  lost  by  similies  more  than  it  has  gained. 
Where  we  find  one  apposite,  we  find  several  that 
tend  rather  to  divert  our  attention  from  the  object 
they  mean  to  illustrate  :  if  they  are  bad,  they  must 
fall  short  of  it ;  if  good,  they  may  go  beyond  it. 

No  two  poets  who  have  written  on  the  exploits 
of  heroes,  are  so  totally  and  universally  different  as 
Virgil  and  Ariosto.  If  there  is  a  general  air  of 
melancholy  pervading  the  poetry  of  Virgil,  there 
is,  on  the  contrary,  a  levity  and  playfulness  of 
expression  even  in  the  most  solemn  and  pathetic 
passages  of  Ariosto : 

Sospirando  piangea,  tal  che  un  ruscello 
Parean  le  guancie,  e  '1  petto  un  Mongibello.^ 

'  Lander's  spelling.  See  the  Letter  to  an  Author,  appended  to  the 
first  edition  of  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  ii.  333  :  "  Is  it  not  odious  to  use 
latin  words  anywhere  for  English  :  simile  for  simily  ?  "  etc. 

*  Ariosto,  Orlando  Furioso,  xiii.  73. 

'  Orlando  Furioso,  i.  40. 

20 


154      COMPANIONSHIP  OF  BOOKS 

Well  might  Cervantes  ridicule  the  romance- 
writers.  But  Ariosto  does  not  always  rise  with 
us  into  this  terrific  loftiness  without  leading  us 
back  again,  and  setting  us  down  nearer  home. 
For  instance  : 

II  liberal,  magnanimo,  sublime — 
Gran  cardinal  de  la  chiesa  di  Roma.^ 

I  hardly  know  any  book  so  pleasant  to  read 
in,  or  so  tiresome  to  read  through,  as  Orlando 
Fu7ioso — of  course,  I  except  The  Faery  Queene. 
I  will  never  believe  that  any  man  has  overcome 
twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  lines  of  allegory,  with- 
out long  intervals  of  respite  and  repose.  I  was 
seventeen  years  in  doing  it,  and  I  never  did 
any  thing  which  I  would  not  rather  do  again. 

In  the  gloomy  deserts  of  Dante,  some  scenes 
are  stupendous  both  from  their  grandeur  and 
their  solitude,  and  lose  nothing  of  their  distinct- 
ness by  their  elevation  ;  in  Ariosto,  if  there  are 
a  few  misshapen  ornaments,  yet  every  thing  around 
them  is  smiling  in  sunshine  and  fertility.  No  man 
ever  lays  his  poem  down  without  a  determina- 
tion to  resume  it,  but  he  lays  it  down  often 
and  negligently.  Let  him  once  be  under  the 
guidance  of  Dante,  and — 

Revocare  gradum  superasque  evadere  ad  auras, 
Hie  labor,  hoc  opus  est  ^ 

^  Orlando   Furioso,  iii.   66.     Written  of  Cardinal  Ippolito  di  Este. 
See  Landor,  Works,  iv.  118. 
2  Virgil,  j^Eneid,  vi.  128.     Wrongly  quoted. 


IN   PRAISE   OF   ALFIERI  155 

He  is  determined  not  to  desist  ;  he  may  find 
another  passage  as  striking  as  the  last ;  he  goes 
on  and  reads  through. 

It  is  remarkable  and  surprising  that  Mr.  Fox, 
in  speaking  of  Italian  literature,  never  conversed 
about  Alfieri.  He  was  incomparably  the  greatest 
poet  in  Europe  at  the  time  of  this  journey,  and 
there  are  not  in  the  whole  compass  of  Italian 
literature  such  exquisite  specimens  of  poetical 
language  and  vigorous  versification.  He  approaches 
more  nearly  to  the  manner  of  the  ancients  than 
any  modern  ;  never  swollen  like  Tasso,  nor  prosaic 
like  Ariosto,  nor  puny  Hke  Metastasio.  If  the 
fame  of  such  a  man  cannot  be  expected  to  attain 
its  full  growth  in  his  own  age,  neither  can  we 
find  without  astonishment  that  his  productions 
were  overlooked.  He  was  a  cordial  hater  of  the 
French ;  he  despised  their  morals,  manners,  govern- 
ment, and  literature  ;  he  detested  Voltaire,  whom 
indeed  he  might  have  considered  as  an  epitomy 
of  that  people  ;  versatile,  lively,  vain,  lying,  shame- 
less, unfeeling,  unprincipled,  and  ambitious.  A 
hatred  of  them  on  these  grounds,  or  any  other, 
might  perhaps  have  not  been  countenanced  by 
the  liberal  spirit  of  Mr.  Fox. 

[Page  171. — "  I  now  regret  that  I  did  not  take 
the  Iliad  or  Odyssey  with  me.  These  works  Mr. 
Fox  preferred  to  all  others  of  the  ancient  classics ; 
and,  were  a  choice  to  have  been  made,  would  have 


156      COMPANIONSHIP  OF  BOOKS 

yielded  all  to  have  preserved  them.  His  letters 
show  his  strong  admiration  of  Homer  ;  and  my 
readers  will  perceive  in  them,  that  he  esteemed 
Euripides  very  highly,  and  perhaps  preferred  him 
to  all  dramatic  writers  ;  yet  Homer  was  the  great 
poet,  with  him,  who  included  every  beauty,  and 
had  the  fewest  defects  in  his  work,  of  any  ancient 
or  modern  genius."] 

We  are  informed  that  he  preferred  Homer  to 
the  other  classics.  It  would  be  better  if  we  could 
discover  in  his  taste  something  that  was  peculiar 
and  discriminating ;  but  not  a  single  remark  of  that 
kind  is  recorded.  That  he  estimated  Euripides 
very  highly  is  another  piece  of  information.  If, 
as  is  added,  he  preferred  him  to  all  dramatic 
writers,  he  deserves  more  pity  than  even  that 
tragedian  of  pity  ever  excited.  Euripides  seems 
to  have  written  solely  for  the  purpose  of  incul- 
cating some  moral  and  political  axioms.^  Almost 
every  character  introduces  them,  and  in  almost 
every  place.  There  is  a  regular  barter  of  verse 
for  verse ;  no  credit  is  given,  but  the  exchange 
paid  down  instantly  for  the  commodity.  These 
dogmas  in  general  are  miserably  flat,  common  and 
unimportant,  totally  different  from  the  striking 
sentences  employed  not  sparingly  by  Pindar,  which 
always  come  recommended  by  some  simple  and 
appropriate    ornament,    Uke    images    on    days   of 

^  Much  of  this  paragraph  was  afterwards  incorporated  in  the 
Imaginary  Conversation  between  the  Abbe  Delille  and  Walter  Landor. 
— Landob's  Works,  iv.  122. 


GREEK   TRAGIC   WRITERS         157 

festival  in  the  temples.  Virgil  has  interspersed 
them  in  his  works,  perhaps  with  equal  felicity, 
and  it  is  among  the  principal  excellences  of  Ovid. 
The  dialogue  of  Euripides  is  in  general  dull  and 
heavy,  the  construction  of  his  fable  infirm  and 
inartificial,  and  if  in  the  chorus  he  assumes 
another  form,  and  becomes  the  poet,  he  is  grossly 
at  a  loss  to  make  it  serve  the  interests  of  the  piece. 
Aristophanes,  who  ridicules  him  in  his  comedies, 
treats  him  disdainfully  as  the  competitor  of 
Sophocles,  and  speaks  probably  the  sense  of  the 
Athenians  in  the  time  of  their  finest  taste  for 
literature.  He  was  not  considered  by  them  as  the 
rival  of  Sophocles ;  but  sensible  men  in  all  ages 
will  admire  him,  and  the  more  so  because  they 
will  fancy  they  discover  in  him  more  wisdom 
than  others  have  discovered ;  for  while  many 
things  in  his  tragedies  are  direct  and  almost  pro- 
verbial, many  are  allusive  and  vague,  occurring 
in  various  states  of  mind  and  temperatures  of 
feeling.  But  there  is  Httle  theatrical  or  dramatic 
in  his  works,  and  his  characters  are  more  anxious 
to  show  their  understanding  than  their  sufferings. 
Euripides  came  farther  down  into  common  Hfe 
than  Sophocles,  and  he  farther  than  JEschylus  ; 
one  would  have  expected  the  reverse.  In  Hecuba, 
Talthybius   calls   Polyxena   a   calf  ^ ;    her  mother 

'  Xe/CToi  T  'A)(^aiStu  fKKpiroi  veavviai 
(TKiprrifia  fji6cr)(OV  arjs  KaBi^omts  )((polu 
€<movTo' — EcRip.j  Hecuba,  516. 


158      COMPANIONSHIP   OF   BOOKS 

had  called  her  so  before,  and  in  Alcestis,  the  best 
of  his  works,  Hercules  is  drunk. ^ 

It  would,  however,  be  unjust  to  deny  that  some- 
times, for  a  page  together,  he  is  both  animated 
and  pathetic,  but  it  would  be  equally  or  more 
so  to  strip  the  laurels  from  the  recent  tomb  of 
Alfieri,^  to  assert  that  he  elevates  the  mind,  or 
softens  the  heart  less  frequently,  that  he  has 
displayed  fewer  or  fainter  powers  of  invention, 
rendered  less  service  to  his  language,  or  conferred 
less  glory  on  his  country. 

*  arecfiei  8e  Kpara  fivp(rivr]s  KKdbois 
cifiova'  iO^aKToov. — EuRiP.^  Alcestis,  752. 
*  The  monument  to  Alfieri^  by  Canova^  erected  at  tlie  expense  of  the 
Comitess  of  Albany,  is  in  the  church  of  Santa  Croce,  Florence.  Landor 
said  of  it :  "  His  monument  is  unworthy  of  Canova's  hand.  It  exhibits 
a  small  portrait  of  the  poet  in  basso  relievo.  Little  is  said  of  him,  much 
of  the  Countess." — Letters  of  Landor  (1897)j,  p.  44.  Landor  once  met 
Alfieri,  in  a  London  bookshop,  and  spoke  to  him  enthusiastically  about 
the  French  revolution.  "  Sir,"  said  Alfieri,  "  you  are  a  very  young 
man.  You  are  yet  to  learn  that  nothing  good  ever  came  out  of  France, 
or  ever  will." — Fobster's  Landor,  ii.  68. 


CHAPTER    IX 

MR.    FOX  IN  PARIS 

Hotel  de  Richelieu — English  nobility  abroad — French  marquises — 
English  county  gentry — Bonaparte  and  La  Fayette — Moreau  and 
Joubert — Pitt  and  France — The  drain  of  gold —  Meeting  with  Lord 
Holland — The  Theatre  franfais — Racine— Pictures  at  the  Louvre — 
Poussin — Fine  arts  in  England — National  gallery  needed — English 
landscape  painters — Gainsborough,  Turner,  and  the  Barkers — 
Climate  and  pictures — Rubens — Versailles — Louis  XIV. — Fox  no 
musician — Metastasio  and  Pindar — Meeting  with  Kosciusco — The 
Tuilleries. 

[Page  184. — "  It  was  not,  however,  without 
painful  imaginations,  that  one  approached  the  city 
of  Paris.  The  recollection  of  the  multitude  of 
lives  immolated  upon  the  shrine  of  sanguinary 
ambition  was  almost  appalling." 

Page  188. — "Entering  one  of  the  Fauxbourgs, 
we  passed  through  the  triumphal  arch  erected,  I 
think,  for  Louis  the  14th,  and  shortly  found  our- 
selves at  the  Hotel  de  RicheUeu,  which  had  been 
engaged  for  Mr.  Fox."] 

Pages  190-191.— "[Two  or  three  of  Mr.  Fox's 
friends  came  to  see  him  on  the  evening  of  his 
arrival :  and  in  seeing  this  great  man  happy,  and 
among  his  dear  English  friends  and  companions, 
the  mournful  impressions  I  had  received  upon 
entering  the  Hotel  de  Richelieu,  wore  away.  .  .  . 
Amidst  all  the  ease  of  polished   society,  the  in- 

159 


160  MR.   FOX   IN   PARIS 

dependence  of  the  Englishmen  was  perceptible  on 
all  sides.  .  .  .]  There  is  a  noble  air  of  liberty 
amongst  the  nobihty  and  higher  classes  of  English- 
men, which  added  to  their  other  accompHshments, 
makes  them  appear  the  viost  respectable  of  tJieir 
class  in  Europe." 

The  nobility  of  other  countries  is  divided  into 
two  parts.  For  instance,  the  grandees  of  Spain 
are  not  merely  the  peers  of  Condes,  etc.  A  certain 
landed  property  is  requisite,  which  is  unalienable, 
and  must  consist  of  many  thousands  a  year.  There 
were  in  Paris  before  the  revolution  several 
marquises  who  had  not  an  income  of  two  hundred 
a  year  each  ;  some  lived  as  common  gamblers  and 
sharpers,  and  exercised  their  talents  in  this  country 
afterwards.  All  those  gentlemen  of  England ' 
who  have  inherited  from  their  ancestors  for  three 
or  four  centuries  large  estates  would  be  classed 
among  the  nobility  in  the  other  kingdoms  of 
Europe,  and  many  of  their  families  had  once  the 
rank  of  baron  in  their  own.  When  Mr.  Pitt  was 
innovating,  in  his  regular  government  as  he  called 
it,  more  than  Marius  presumed  to  do  when  he 
had  trampled  on  the  necks   of  the  Romans,  the 

•  In  the  Imaginary  Conversations  Landor  makes  Alfieri  say  :  "  The 
greater  part  of  the  English  nobility  has  neither  power  nor  title.  Even 
those  who  are  noble  by  right  of  possession,  the  hereditary  lords  of 
manors  with  large  estates  attached  to  them,  claim  no  titles  at  home  or 
abroad.  Hence  in  all  foreign  countries  the  English  gentleman  is  placed 
below  his  rank,  which  naturally  and  necessarily  is  far  higher  than  that 
of  your  slipshod  counts  and  lottery-office  marquises." — Works,  iv,  267. 


OUR   LANDED   ARISTOCRACY     161 

few  country-gentlemen  remaining  might  have 
formed  themselves  into  a  separate  class,  and 
constituted  a  nobility  more  respectable  and  more 
powerful  than  his.  Lords  of  two  or  three  manors, 
heirs  of  three  or  four  thousand  a  year  for  three 
or  four  generations,  might  have  established  to 
themselves  that  rank  in  the  country  which  their 
families  once  possessed.  They  lost  it  by  not  being 
called  to  parliament  at  the  beck  of  an  arbitrary 
king,  who  conferred  new  possessions  and  privileges 
on  such  as  were  more  subservient  to  his  will. 
When  republicanism  was  making  such  alarming 
strides  as  he  represented,  why  did  not  the  anti- 
phlogistic philosophers  who  sat  shivering  on  their 
seats  in  the  house  of  commons,  take  out  of  his 
hands  those  instruments  of  which  he  knew  not 
the  use  and  application  ;  why  did  not  the  country 
gentlemen  of  England  erect  a  barrier  of  property 
on  a  broad  basis,  against  the  flood-tide  which  he 
foretold  would  ruin  their  estates,  and  re-establish 
old  usages  in  opposition  to  new  opinions  ? 

Page  193. — "  [The  various  points  of  attraction 
in  Paris  irresistibly  drew  the  mind  in  different 
directions.  The  new  government,  just  rendered 
permanent  and  hereditary  in  Bonaparte,  was  pre- 
senting itself  to  the  public  eye.  Under  it,  the 
stern  republican  and  angry  royalist  were  ranging 
themselves,  unable  to  struggle  against  an  order  of 
things,  emerging  from  that  chaos  of  conflicting 
interests,  which  until  now  had  agitated  the  interior 

21 


162  MR.   FOX   IN   PARIS 

of  France.  The  imposing  character  of  Bonaparte, 
a  warrior  and  a  statesman  of  no  common  note,  had 
acquired  an  ascendancy  which  he  was  admirably 
quaUfied  to  maintain.]  You  endeavoured,  said  he, 
to  M.  La  Fayette,^  on  his  thanking  him  for  his 
liberation  from  the  dungeons  of  Germany,  to 
establish  the  solecism  of  a  monarch  at  the  head  of 
a  republic." 

Bonaparte  was  in  the  habit  of  saying  to  those 
about  him  things  which  were  (jicovavra  o-werola-i.^  A 
monarch,  as  we  call  a  king,  had  existed  in  the 
republic  of  Poland. 

Page  195. — "  It  was  privately  stated,  that  when 
Bonaparte  returned  from  Egypt,  and  the  change 
of  government  was  in  agitation,  he]  (Bonaparte), 
Moreau,  and  Joubert,  had  been  thought  of  as  fit 
heads  for  the  republic."^ 

Joubert  lost  his  life  in  the  midst  of  his  popularity. 

'  Lafayette  fled  from  France  during  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  was 
arrested  and  imprisoned  by  the  Prussians.  In  1795  the  King  of  Prussia 
handed  him  over  to  the  Austrians,  by  whom  he  was  kept  in  confinement 
at  Olmiitz.  His  case  was  the  subject  of  a  debate  in  the  House  of 
Commons  in  .1796,  but  Fitzpatrick's  proposal  that  England  should 
demand  his  release  was  defeated.  He  was  liberated  in  August,  1797, 
at  the  instance  of  Bonaparte. 

*  Pindar,  Olymp.  ii.  152.  The  same  words  were  inscribed  on  the  title- 
page  of  Odes  by  Mr.  Gray,  printed  at  Strawberry  Hill,  1757. 

^  Trotter  proceeds  :  "  That  the  latter  [Joubert]  had  been  nominated 
by  the  party  who  conceived  that  a  military  character  was  requisite  at 
the  head  of  the  nation  ;  and  that  after  he  lost  his  life  in  battle,  Moreau 
and  Bonaparte  alone  were  those  to  whom  the  armies  subsequently 
looked  up  ;  but  the  former  was  induced,  by  the  latter's  persuasion,  to 
yield  his  pretensions  to  him.  Without  vouching  for  this,  1  cannot 
assent  to  the  opinion  that  Bonaparte  could  have  had  any  competitor  of 
a  formidable  nature,  either  upon  being  chosen  first  consul,  or  upon  his 
attaining  the  consulate  for  life." 


WHAT   PITT   ACCOMPLISHED     163 

Moreau  was  thought  amiable,  but  was  always 
called  sans  caractere.  No  man  ever  was  so  well 
formed  to  govern  France  as  Bonaparte.  He  had 
associated  in  person  with  the  vilest,  the  most 
unprincipled,  and  the  most  turbulent.  He  was 
chosen  to  fill  his  office  as  thief-takers  are  chosen 
for  theirs  :  from  knowing  the  haunts  and  habits 
of  the  abandoned  and  desperate. 

\_Page  198. — "  I  found  myself  in  Paris,  the  seat 
of  so  many  Bourbons,  once  almost  adored,  now 
blotted  from  the  calendar  of  Sovereigns,  and  a 
new  throne  quietly  erecting  at  the  Tuileries  ;  a 
new  dynasty  securely  placing  its  feet  upon  the 
steps."] 

[Page  199. — "Such  were  my  thoughts, — I  felt 
almost  giddy  at  the  view ;  the  destiny  of  millions 
was  arranging  before  my  eyes  ;  it  was  quite  impos- 
sible for  a  number  of  Englishmen  to  meet,  and  to 
forbear  saying,  how  astonishing  !]  What  a  business 
has  been  accomplished  by  William  Pitt!  [What 
2i  friend  has  he  been  to  the  fortunes  of  Bonaparte !]" 

Yes,  yes !  without  this  incomparable  financier, 
France  would  not  have  found  gold  enough  in  all 
her  territories  to  make  a  crown  of.  This  heaven- 
born  minister  showered  it  down  on  her  like  Jupiter 
into  the  lap  of  Danae. 

Page  200.^— "The  phenomenon  of  abundance  of 

'  Trotter  says  (p.  199) :  "  Another  striking  result,  also,  of  the 
Coalition  War  awaited  us  in  Paris.  Here  all  was  gold  and  silver.  In 
London,  a  few  guineas  were  with  great  difficulty  procured  from  a 
banker,  as  a  matter  of  favour ;   in  Paris,  the  banker  gave  you  your 


164  MR.   FOX   IN   PARIS 

gold  and  silver  in  France,  and  of  nothing  to  be 
seen  but  paper  in  England — how  should  I  have 
rejoiced  that  Mr.  Pitt,  accompanied  by  some 
vociferating  members  of  parliament,  or  interested 
merchants,  had  been  led  to  a  Parisian  banker's 
desk,  and  interrogated  on  this  difference." 

Why  I  they  would  have  sworn  it  was  either  the 
last  night's  plunder  by  some  jacobin,  or,  if  any 
of  Pitt's  saints  were  among  them,  that  it  was 
some  illusion  of  the  devil.  Tell  them  a  truth,  and 
they  hate  you  ;  prove  it,  and  they  never  forgive 
you. 

[Page  201. — "As  Mr.  Fox  found  himself  happily 
reunited  to  Lord  Holland  and  his  family,  after  a 
considerable  separation,  we  dined  with  them,  and 
in  the  evening  went  to  the  Theatre  franpais. 
Upon  entering  a  French  theatre  for  the  first  time, 
an  Englishman  finds  a  good  deal  to  reconcile  him- 
self to.  The  want  of  a  powerful  light  throughout 
the  house,  intended  to  give  greater  effect  to  the 
stage,  offends  his  taste  at  first,  but  he  will  finally 
approve,  if  he  be  not  determined  to  prefer  all  the 
customs  of  England." 

Page  202. — "The  piece  we  saw  was  A ndromaque, 
in  which  Mademoiselle  Duchenois,  as  Hermione, 
obtained  and  deserved  great  applause.  The 
French  declamation  is  at  first  rather  painful  to  an 
English  ear,  and  I   think  a  less   measured  style, 

choice — silver  or  gold,  and  both  were  plentiful :  England  having  nothing 
but  paper,  and  France  nothing  but  gold  and  silver  ;  a  fact  which  spoke 
very  intelligible  language.  How  much  should  I  have  rejoiced,"  etc.^ 
as  in  Landor's  quotation. 


VISITS   TO   THE   THEATRE        165 

and   studied  tone,  would  much  improve  it.     The 
unpleasantness  wore  quickly  off,  however." 

Page  203. — "  Mr.  Fox  enjoyed  the  French 
theatre  very  much ;  and  as  Racine  was  his  favourite 
dramatic  author,  we  went  very  shortly  again  to 
see  Phedra  performed  at  the  same  theatre." 

Page  204. — "  On  this  occasion  he  (Mr.  Fox)  was 
very  soon  recognised  by  the  audience  in  the  pit. 
Every  eye  was  fixed  upon  him,  and  every  tongue 
resounded  Fox  !  Fox  !  The  whole  audience  stood 
up,  and  the  applause  was  universal."] 

Page  202. — Here  are  some  remarks  on  the 
French  theatre  very  creditable  to  the  taste  of  the 
author.  The  manner  of  lighting  it  is  founded,  not 
on  parsimony,  as  some  Englishmen  think,  but  on 
sound  knowledge  of  effect.  Every  actor  is  equal 
to  his  part ;  none  seems  to  solicit  applause,  every 
one  to  deserve  it.  Human  ingenuity  could  not 
contrive  any  thing  so  painful  to  the  ear  as  a 
continuation  of  Alexandrines,  a  regular  and  rapid 
alternation  from  high  to  low,  a  pause  at  every  sixth 
syllable ;  and  French  tragedy  labours  under  this 
evil  spirit,  which  no  genius  can  exorcise,  yet  the 
actors  in  some  degree  seduce  us  from  our 
sufferings. 

Whoever  takes  the  trouble  of  marking  all  idle 
or  extravagant  epithets  in  Racine,  will  be  sur- 
prised at  the  number.  A  very  large  proportion 
of    rhymes    in    the   language   are   adjectives   and 


166  MR.   FOX   IN  PARIS 

participles,  which  also  in  general  form  the  cesura. 
This  is  among  the  principal  reasons  why  it  is  less 
poetical  than  any  other  we  know  of,  unless  it  be 
the  Chinese  ;  and  if  we  consider  that  some  of  the 
poets,  as  we  find  in  Manage,  collected  the  rhymes 
first  and  filled  them  up  afterwards,  and  that  it  was 
the  custom  of  Racine  to  begin  with  the  second 
verse  throughout,  we  cannot  wonder  that  nothing 
grand,  simple,  or  unlaboured  is  to  be  found  in 
their  graver  poetry.  I  believe  I  read  La  Fontaine 
with  as  much  pleasure  as  any  Frenchman  does, 
but  his  merits  are  quite  distinct  from  his  verse. 
Racine  is  a  dexterous  planner  of  dramas,  but  all 
his  characters  are  French  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
and  all  possess  dispassionate  judgment  in  the  most 
arduous  affairs.     The  celebrated  line — 

Je  crains  Dieu,  etc., 

is  taken  almost  verbally  from  Godeau.^  The  one 
preceding  it  is  useless,  and  shows,  as  innumerable 
other  instances  do,  his  custom  of  making  the  first 
for  the  second.  He  has  profited  very  much  by 
the  neglected  poets  of  his  country,  and  wants 
energy  because  he  wants  originality. 

'  Soumis  avec  respect  a  sa  volonte  sainte 
Je  crains  Dieu,  cher  Abner,  et  n'ai  pas  d'autre  crainte. " 

Racine,  Athalie,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 
Landor  repeats  this  criticism  in  his  Imaginary  Conversation  with  the 
Abbe'  Delille  (  Works,  iv.  120).  Joseph  Warton,  in  his  essay  on  Pope 
(3rd  edition,  p.  91),  quotes  the  account  given  by  Me'nage,  in  his 
Observations  sur  les  poesies  de  Malherbe,  of  another  theft  from  Antoine 
Godeau,  Bishop  of  Vence,  the  culprit  in  this  case  being  Corneille. 


THE   FRUITS   OF   CONQUEST      167 

Page  207. — "  [No  one  could  be  in  Paris  and  not 
feel  a  powerful  desire  to  view  those  productions  of 
art  and  genius,  the  accumulated  fruits  of  successful 
war.  Shortly  after  our  arrival,  therefore,  we 
hastened  to  the  museum  of  pictures  at  the 
Louvre.]  Mr.  Fox  smiled  as  he  entered  the 
museum  of  the  Louvre,  and  seemed  plainly  to  say, 
'  Here  are  the  fruits  of  conquest.'  " 

My  own   feelings,    I   confess,   were    extremely 
different.     I  went,  with  impatient  haste,  to  behold 
these  wonders  of  their  age  and  of  all  ages  succeed- 
ing, but  no   sooner  had  I  ascended   a  few   steps 
leading  to  them,  than  I  leaned  back  involuntarily 
against  the   ballusters,   and   my   mind   was  over- 
shadowed,   and    almost    overpowered,    by    these 
reflections  :    Has  then  the  stupidity  of  men  who 
could   not  in  the  whole  of  their   existence   have 
given  birth  to  any  thing  equal  to  the  smallest  of 
the  works  above,  been  the  cause  of  their  removal 
from  the  country  of  those  who  produced  them  ? 
Kings,  whose  fatuity  would   have   befitted   them 
better  to  drive  a  herd  of  swine  than  to  direct  the 
energies  of  a  nation  I     Well,  well !     I  will  lose  for 
a  moment  the   memory  of  their  works   in   con- 
templating those  of  greater  men  I 

If  I  envy  a  man  any  thing  it  is  his  smiles ;  but 
those  of  Mr.  Fox  I  neither  could  envy  nor  share. 

The  long  gallery  of  the  Louvre  should  be 
divided  into  five  or  six,  and  the  light  admitted 
into  each  from  above.     It  would  then  contain  a 


168  MR.   FOX   IN   PARIS 

third  part  more  of  pictures,  and  every  one  would 
be  seen  to  greater  advantage.  At  present  it  is 
like  looking  through  a  sheet  of  paper  rolled  up 
into  a  cylinder.  The  French  artists  do  not  derive 
all  the  advantages  they  might  from  the  Italian. 
They  either  copy  statues,  or  imitate  those  who 
have.  Poussin  is  more  studied  than  Raphael,  and 
although  they  know  well  that  the  perfection  of 
their  art  consists  in  the  delight  which  arises  from 
beauty  and  combinations  of  forms,  and  from 
sweetness  and  propriety  of  colours,  yet  we  find 
no  attempt  to  acquire  any  thing  from  Correggio. 

To  the  scandal  and  infamy  of  our  government, 
we  have  no  national  gallery,  when  a  million  or 
two  would  have  purchased  some  of  the  finest 
specimens  of  all  the  ancient  masters,  both  in 
painting  and  in  statuary,  before  they  were  irre- 
vocably fixt  in  Paris,  but  after  it  was  known  that 
they  would  otherwise  be  sent  thither ;  we  have  not 
even  a  receptacle  for  the  select  works  of  our  own 
most  eminent  masters.  With  all  these  discourage- 
ments, we  have  now  living  a  greater  variety  of 
good  painters  than  the  French  have.  Claude 
Lorraine,  N.  Poussin,  Le  Brun,  Vernet,  and  per- 
haps as  many  more,  have  never  been  equalled 
here  ;  but  those  who  attribute  our  failure  to  our 
climate  talk  most  ignorantly.  It  is  in  landscape, 
where  climate  would  have  most  influence,  that  the 
greatest    number    of   the    English    school   excel. 


SCHOOLS   OF  PAINTING  169 

Wilson  and  Gainsborough  were  succeeded  by 
Loutherbourg  and  Turner,  and  the  Barkers.^  Of 
these,  Thomas  Barker,  however  Httle  patronised, 
and  still  young,  has  produced  more  good  pictures 
than  any  native  of  England.  Climate  alone  has 
little  effect  on  the  fine  arts.  The  most  vivid  and 
powerful  of  colourists  lived  and  studied  among 
damps  and  fogs.  The  Venetian  school  was  formed 
in  a  showery  country,  and  the  colours  of  Rubens 
were  "  unborrowed  of  the  sun."^  The  visible  face 
of  nature  is  not  that  on  which  painters  fix  their 
eyes  incessantly ;  memory,  reflection,  imagination, 
give  a  play  and  a  variety  to  its  features ;  genius 
and  judgment  have  the  power  of  contemplating  it, 
abroad  or  at  home,  in  whatever  aspect  they  wish. 

Page  215. — "  [Two  days  after  our  arrival  in 
Paris,  we  went  to  see  the  Palace  of  Versailles.  .  .  . 
This  cumbrous  pile  seemed  little  to  suit  Mr.  Fox's 
taste.  .  .  .  The  pride  of  despotism  had  erected  a 
mansion  for  its  display  of  pomp  :  a  galled  and 
oppressed  people  had  paid,  with  the  fruit  of  their 
labour,  for  its  erection.]  Here  their  haughty  kings 
rioted — Versailles — and  forgetting  the  miseries  of 
their  subjects,  added  to  them  by  their  selfish  ex- 
travagance, and  bestowed   on  profligate  courtiers 

1  "The  Woodman,"  by  Thomas  Barker,  of  Bath  (1769-1847),  was 
engraved  by  Bartolozzi.  TTie  brother,  Benjamin  Barker,  died  in  1838. 
Thomas  Jones  Barker,  son  of  Thomas  Barker,  was  born  in  1815  and 
died  in  1882. 

*  "  With  orient  hues  unborrow'd  of  the  sun." 

Gray,  Progress  of  Poesy,  iii.  3. 

22 


170  MR.   FOX   IN   PARIS 

what  would  have  made  merit  happy,  and  caused 
genius  to  expand  and  bloom." 

Louis  XIV.,  that  great  patron  of  literature,  is 
celebrated  for  giving  pensions  to  men  of  genius. 
I  once  took  the  trouble  to  cast  up  the  amount 
of  several,  bestowed  on  the  ornaments  of  his 
reign,  and  found  that,  collectively,  they  rather  fell 
short  of  what  Cambaceres  was  said  to  give  as 
wages  to  his  cook. 

Page  228. — "[Mr.  Fox  enjoyed  the  French 
spectacle  greatly,  and  1  think  he  did  not  differ 
much  from  me,  when  I  preferred  it  to  the  English 
stage.  In  one  respect,  however,  he  felt  less 
pleasure  at  the  public  amusements  than  others  did, 
as]  music  gave  him  no  great  satisfaction.  [He  did 
not  appear  to  relish  it  much,  and  he  himself  has 
assured  me,  and  his  mind  was  free  from  all  disguise, 
that  he  derived  no  pleasure  from  it.  Still  this  must 
be  taken  in  a  qualified  sense,  even  from  himself] 
He  who  could  so  strongly  taste  the  charms  of 
poetry,  could  not  be  destitute  of  a  musical  ear."  ^ 

This  does  not  follow.  No  people  are  so  ignorant 
of  poetry   as   musicians.     Hardly    one   was    ever 

*  "  Mr.  Fox  had  a  kind  of  singular  taste  for  music  ;  in  this  alone  he 
was  totally  without  judgment.  Old  tunes  were  such  as  alone  pleased 
him.  He  said  that  no  opera  was  equal  to  Inkle  and  Yarico.  Some  one 
happening  to  mention  The  Beggar's  Opera,  he  said,  '  Certainly,  1  will 
except  that.  The  Beggars  Opera  is  the  wittiest  drama  on  the  stage  : 
the  wit  is  simple,  intelligible,  and  appeals  alike  to  every  one.'  " — 
Circumstantial  Details,  etc.,  p.  41.  Bishop  Tomline  quotes  Windham's 
remark  that  Pitt,  Fox,  Burke,  and  Dr.  Johnson,  the  four  greatest  men 
he  had  known,  had  no  ear  for  music.  See  Lord  Rosebery's  article  in 
The  Monthly  Review,  August,  1903. 


MUSICIANS   AND   DANCERS       171 

found  who  could  write  it  even  indifferently,  and 
extremely  few  who  could  value  properly  even 
the  merits  of  versification.  This  appears  strange ; 
but  it  is  more  so,  and  equally  true,  that  although 
dancing  requires  a  good  ear,  as  many  think,  few 
dancers  are  good  musicians ;  their  ear  is  good  for 
nothing  more  than  to  note  the  proper  time,  the 
apcTLs  and  ^eo-t?  ^  of  the  feet.  The  Italians  are  the 
most  musical  people  in  Europe,  and  the  worst 
dancers ;  the  French  are  the  best  dancers  and 
worst  musicians. 

Page  229. — "No  one  felt  more  than  Mr.  Fox 
the  powers  of  Homer,  Virgil,  Pindar,  Euripides, 
Ariosto,  or  Metastasio." 

Alas !  these  are  levelling  days  indeed  !  Meta- 
stasio in  the  company  of  Pindar  and  of  Homer  I 
the  powers  of  Metastasio  I  of  the  Abbate  Meta- 
stasio !  Aye  verily,  why  not  ?  was  he  not  poeta 
Cesareo  ?  Mr.  Fox  did  seriously  think  him  a 
great  poet,  and  knew  not  that  Alfieri  was  a 
greater,  or  one  at  all  I  Of  Pindar  he  knew 
little ;  he  tells  us  himself  that  he  had  read  only 
a  part  of  his  works. ^  There  is  a  grandeur  of 
soul  in  Pindar  which   never  leaves  him,  even  in 

'  Thesis  is  the  ictus  or  beat  of  the  foot,  arsis  the  uplifting.  The 
meanings  are  sometimes  confused. 

*  "  Pindar,"  Mr.  Fox  wrote  to  Trotter,  "  is  too  often  obscure,  and 
sometimes  more  spun  out  and  wordy  than  suits  my  taste  ;  but  there  are 
passages  in  him  quite  divine.  I  have  not  read  above  half  his  works. " — 
Memoirs,  p.  405. 


172  MR.   FOX   IN   PARIS 

domestic  scenes.^  His  genius  does  not  rest  on 
points  or  peaks  of  sublimity,  but  pervades  all 
things  with  a  vigorous  and  easy  motion,  such 
as  poets  attribute  to  the  messenger  of  the  gods. 
He  is  still  more  remarkable  for  his  exquisite 
taste  than  for  his  sublimity.  He  never  says 
more  than  w^hat  is  proper,  nor  otherwise  than 
what  is  best ;  and  he  appears  no  less  the  superior 
of  all  other  mortals  in  the  perfection  of  wisdom 
than  of  poetry. 

[Page  229. — "  Eight  or  nine  days  after  our  arrival, 
the  door  of  one  of  the  apartments  of  the  Hotel  de 
Richelieu  was  thrown  open,  and  a  gentleman  of 
small  stature,  and  with  nothing  prepossessing 
in  his  appearance,  was  shown  in.  .  .  .  It  was 
Kosciusko  I "] 

Page  231. — "  Mr.  Fox's  reception  of  him 
(Kosciusko)  was  warm  and  friendly." 

He  and  Palafox  are  the  only  two  men  in  the 
universe  I  would  rise  from  my  chair  to  look  at.^ 

Page  232. — "  [Kosciusko  was  in  apparent  good 
health,  though,  I  believe,  his  wounds  will  never 
aUow  him  to  be  perfectly  well.]  The  interview 
was  not  very  long,  but  how  different  was  it  from 
the  meeting  of  potentates,  prepared  to  deceive  one 

*  A  portion  of  this  paragraph  is  repeated  in  the  Imaginary  Conversa- 
tion between  Landor  and  the  Abbe  Delille.  —  Works,  iv.  97. 

*  "  Among  all  men  elevated  in  station  who  have  made  a  noise  in  the 
world  (admirable  old  expression)  I  never  saw  any  in  whose  presence  I 
felt  inferiority  excepting  Kosciusko." — Landor,  Works,  iv.  428. 


VILLAINS   AND   PATRIOTS         173 

another,  or  planning  the  disturbance  of  happy  and 
independent  nations.  Not  like  Joseph  and  the 
remorseless  Catharine."^ 

Infamous  prostitute  and  despicable  villain ! 
What  reaction  of  the  mind  drives  us  back  upon 
you,  from  the  sublimest  and  purest  spectacle  of 
human  virtue  I 

Page  233. — ["  I  saw  Kosciusko  depart  with  a 
strong  sentiment  of  profound  admiration  and 
sorrow.]  He  (Kosciusko)  was  an  obscure  indi- 
vidual in  France,  little  noticed,  and  cast  back 
among  the  class  of  ordinary  men ;  not  regarded 
by  a  new  government  rising  upon  the  ruins  of 
every  thing  republican,  and  felt  himself  alone 
among  the  brilliant  crowd  of  opulent  and 
thoughtless   strangers." 

Yet  Mr.  Fox  was  honoured  in  that  country. 
Were  his  principles,  then,  different  from  Kosciusko's, 
and  more  congenial  to  the  French  ?     They  were. 

Omnis  Aristippum  decuit  color,  et  status,  et  res.^ 

[Page  239. — "  I  was  glad  to  go  to  the  palace  of 
the  Tuileries  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fox,  Mr.  West, 
and  Mr.  Opie.  In  front  are  still  to  be  seen  the 
marks  of  cannon-ball :  the  memorable  night  of  the 

1  "  Summer,  1780,  Joseph  made  his  famous  first  visit  to  the  Czarina 
(May-August,  1780)— not  yet  for  some  years  his  thrice-famous  second 
visit,  thrice-famous  Cleopatra  voyage  with  her  down  the  Danube." — 
Carlvle's  Frederick  the  Great.  In  1780  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.  met 
Catharine  at  MohilefF  and  went  with  her  to  St.  Petersburg.  The 
second  meeting  took  place  in  1787. 

'  Horace,  Epist.  i.  17.  23. 


174  MR.   FOX   IN   PARIS 

9th  and  10th  of  August,  1792,  was  thus  vividly 
recalled  to  the  memory."] 

Page  240. — "  Could  one  enter  this  palace  with- 
out shuddering  ?  and  could  one  avoid  acknowledging 
that  after  such  and  greater  and  continued  horrors, 
the  French  with  some  reason  have  naturally 
acquiesced  under  a  government  which,  though 
falling  short  of  their  early  and  fond  expectations, 
affords  them  security  against  [internal  commotions, 
and  protects  their  properties  and  hves  against]  the 
caprice  of  an  ignorant  populace  ?  " 

No  people  is  so  incapable  of  governing  itself 
as  the  French,  and  no  government  is  so  proper 
for  it  as  a  despotic  and  military  one.  A  nation 
more  restless  and  rapacious  than  any  horde  in 
Tartary,  can  be  controuled  only  by  a  Genghis 
Khan.  Such  is  their  animal  temper  at  this  day, 
and  such  was  it  in  the  time  of  Annibal,  as 
described  by  Livy.  Their  emperor  has  acted 
towards  them  with  perfect  wisdom,  and  will 
leave  to  some  future  Machiavelli,  if  Europe 
should  ever  see  again  so  consummate  a  politi- 
cian, a  name  which  may  be  added  to  Agathocles 
and  Caesar  Borgia.^  He  has  amused  himself  with 
a  display  of  every  character  from  Masaniello^  up 

^  "  Agathocles,  the  Sicilian,  came  not  merely  from  a  private  station, 
but  from  the  very  dregs  of  the  people,  to  be  king  of  Syracuse."— 
Machiavelli,  The  Prince,  chap.  viii.  "  Cesare  Borgia  .  .  .  obtained 
a  princedom  through  the  favourable  fortunes  of  his  father,  and  with 
these  lost  it." — lb.  chap.  vii. 

^  Tommaso  Anniello,  leader  of  the  Neapolitan  revolt  in  July,  1647. 


BONAPARTE'S   VAGARIES         175 

to  Charlemagne,  but  in  all  his  pranks  and  vagaries 
he  has  kept  one  foot  upon  Frenchmen.  This  is 
a  sight  which  those  who  think  worth  seeing  might 
have  seen  for  nothing,  had  they  been  wise. 

Page  240. — "  Security  against  internal  com- 
motions and  protection  of  property  and  lives 
against  the  caprice  of  an  ignorant  populace, 
are  sometimes  given  by  despotism,  and  some- 
times not.  It  was,  however,  no  matter  of  choice 
with  the  French :  they  were  dragooned  into  it, 
and  applauded  what  they  dared  not  resist.  One 
of  the  reasons  why  a  new  despotism  is  often 
strong  is  this :  many  brave  men  are  overpowered 
by  more  brave  men.  They  are  ashamed  of 
acknowledging  or  showing  that  they  were  so, 
and  unite  with  those  whose  force  they  can  well 
estimate.  Hence  they  acquire  their  share  of 
honours  and  distinctions ;  and  after  they  have 
made  others  yield,  it  is  forgotten  that  they 
themselves  have  yielded. 


CHAPTER    X 

COURT  OF  BONAPARTE 

Fox  at  the  First  Consul's  levee — Englishmen  detained  in  France — 
Lord  Whitworth — English  ambassadors — Lord  Douglas  at  St. 
Petersburg — Lord  Morpeth  and  the  Queen  of  Prussia — English 
in  Spain — Blake's  military  operations — France  and  Switzerland — 
Fox  presented  to  Bonaparte — Helen  Maria  Williams — Sir  Stephen 
Fox — General  Moreau — Monuments  fran<;ais — Madame  Cabarrus 
— Conversation  with  Bonaparte — Virgil  again — Favourite  epithets. 

\_Page  242. — "Mr.  Fox  had  now  been  twelve 
days  in  Paris,  and  we  had  not  seen  Bonaparte, 
except  slightly  and  imperfectly  at  the  theatre. 
My  own  wish  to  behold  the  first  Consul  had  not 
been  increased  since  my  arrival.  The  observation 
of  military  guards  everywhere,  the  information 
that  the  number  of  barracks  in  and  about  Paris 
were  very  great,  that  20,000  troops  were  within  a 
short  summons ;  and,  above  all,  a  knowledge  that 
the  system  of  espionage  was  carried  to  an  incredible 
height,  making  suspicion  of  the  slightest  indispo- 
sition to  government  sufficient  cause  for  individuals 
to  be  hurried  away  at  night  (many  of  them  never 
to  be  heard  of  again),  had  not  contributed,  by 
any  means,  to  exalt  my  opinion  of  the  new 
government."] 

Page  243. — "  At  this  time  I  even  doubted 
whether  an  Enghshman,  a  true  lover  of  liberty, 
ought  to  sanction  the  new  order  of  things." 

i76 


AT  BONAPARTE'S   LEVEE         177 

That  is  to  say,  at  a  time,  as  the  author  tells  us 
in  the  very  sentence  before,  when  suspicion  of  the 
slightest  indisposition  to  government  was  sufficient 
cause  for  individuals  to  be  hurried  away  at  night, 
many  of  them  to  be  never  heard  of  again. 

But  Mr.  Fox's  determination  to  go  to  the  levee 
threw  a  "  new  light  "  upon  the  secretary's  mind. 

IPage  243. — "  Mr.  Fox's  determination  to  go  to 
the  approaching  levee  threw  a  new  light  upon  my 
mind,  and  I  was  brought  to  consider  the  case 
dispassionately.  Was  an  English  gentleman  or 
nobleman,  travelling  for  instruction  or  pleasure, 
to  be  the  reformer  and  censor  of  Europe  ?  at 
Petersburg  to  reprimand  Alexander,  or  shun  his 
*  court  ?  at  Constantinople  to  insult  the  Grand 
Signior,  and  rudely  reject  the  society  of  his 
ministers  ?  No !  I  said  to  myself  .  .  .  the 
enhghtened  stranger  will,  in  all  countries,  respect 
the  existing  government,  conform  to  its  usages  and 
ceremonies,  and  frequent  its  court  as  the  focus  of 
all  the  rank,  talent  and  character  of  the  country."] 

Any  Englishman  who  could  sanction  by  his 
presence  such  atrocious  despotism,  is  unworthy  of 
breathing  the  air  of  his  free  ancestors,  and  deserves 
universal  and  eternal  execration.  He  should  be 
banished,  not  only  from  the  society  of  his  country- 
men, but  from  the  sight  of  his  fellow-creatures. 
Never  did  I  feel  more  cordial  pleasure,  never  did 
I  acknowledge  with  more  gratitude  and  transport 

the  interposition   of  divine  justice,  than  when   1 

23 


178  COURT  OF   BONAPARTE 

heard  of  such  wretches  being  detained  in  France, 
after  the  people  of  England  had  received  the 
grossest  insult  in  the  person  of  their  ambassador.^ 
Bonaparte,  said  I,  has  often  been  vindictive  and 
sanguinary ;  let  him  now  be  both,  let  him  punish 
those  whom  the  laws  of  England,  and  whom  the 
feelings  of  Englishmen,  can  never  reach.  Wide  is 
the  difference  between  a  respect  for  the  usages  of 
a  foreign  country  or  a  foreign  court,  and  a  volun- 
tary homage  paid  to  a  ferocious  barbarian  who 
holds  all  usages  in  contempt.  An  ambassador 
goes  to  him  by  the  order  and  for  the  interests  of 
his  country ;  private  persons  should  look  at  him 
from  a  distance,  as  at  a  tiger  or  serpent,  such  as 
his  native  land  does  not  produce.  It  was  requisite, 
was  it,  to  frequent  his  court  "  as  the  focus  of  all 
the  rank,  talent  and  character  of  the  country "  ? 
An  involuntary  smile  will  rise  at  these  expressions, 
of  which  the  folly  and  impudence  are  become  a 
byword  in  every  lane  and  alley,  and  are  the  signal 
for  boys  to  hoot  at  whenever  they  meet  a  Foxite. 
The  rank  and  character,  and  best  manners,  were 
not  excluded  from  the  Tuileries,  but  disdained 
to  enter.  Many  men  of  illustrious  rank  and 
unostentatious    honour   were    seen    daily  in    the 

'  The  famous  interview  between  Bonaparte  and  Lord  Whitworth 
took  place  on  March  13,  1803.  The  First  Consul  raised  his  arm  as  if 
he  meant  to  strike  the  ambassador,  who  afterwards  declared  that,  had 
the  blow  fallen,  he  would  have  run  Bonaparte  through  the  body  with 
his  sword.  Lord  Whitworth  was  the  uncle  of  the  Hon.  Rose  Whit- 
worth Aylmer,  the  subject  of  Landor's  elegy. 


AN   INDOLENT   AMBASSADOR     179 

gardens  of  the  Luxembourg,  whose  countenance 
said,  /  would  he  grateful,  but  gratitude  is  a  crime 
under  the  new  government;  the  hand  of  JBonapaj'tey 
when  Mr.  Fooo  ceases  to  kiss  it,  may  consign  us  to 
the  dungeon  which  is  to  be  the  boundary  of  our 
existence. 

Page  244. — "[Mr.  Merry,^  the  British  ambas- 
sador, was  a  good-natured  and  friendly  man,  but 
unequal  to  trying  and  delicate  emergencies.  .  .  .] 
I  had  subsequent  reason,  in  Mr.  Fox's  ministry,  to 
observe  that  Mr.  Pitt's  long  ministry  had  been 
ill  supplied  with  men  of  talent  in  foreign  courts  ! " 

There  is  no  nation  in  Europe,  great  or  secondary, 
which  employs  such  improper  persons  in  embassies. 
Mr.  Fox  sent  a  nobleman  ^  into  Russia  who  is  said 
to  have  treated  almost  every  one,  native  and 
foreign,  with  contempt.  Ignorant,  indolent,  and 
dissipated,  the  merchants  presented  to  him,  in 
very  glowing  language,  a  long  account  of  their 
grievances.  They  expected  he  would  consider  it, 
look  over  treaties  and  stipulations,  and  present  it 
in  diplomatic  terms  to  the  emperor.  Whether  he 
read  it  or  not  is  uncertain,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
say  on  which  supposition  we  could  found  his  best 

'  Mr.  Authony  Merry  was  the  Minister  Plenipotentiary  in  Paris  at 
the  time  of  Fox's  visit. 

*  The  Marquis  of  Douglas,  afterwards  Duke  of  Hamilton.  See 
Diaries,  etc.,  of  Sir  George  Jackson,  March  29,  1807  :  "The  Emperor, 
it  seems,  had  taken  great  offence  at  Lord  Douglas  having  delivered  to 
the  Russian  Minister,  as  an  official  note  from  himself,  the  translatiou 
of  a  memorial  he  had  received  from  the  merchants  at  St.  Petersburg^ 
which  contained  expressions  not  very  flattering  to  the  Russians  "  (ii.  90). 


180  COURT   OF   BONAPARTE 

defence,  but  he  immediately  delivered  it,  or  sent 
it  to  the  people  in  power  there.  The  emperor 
was  enraged  at  such  language ;  and  a  body  of 
men  whom  he  had  always  protected,  and  whose 
grievances,  when  he  knew  them,  he  would  redress, 
lost  his  favour  and  countenance  for  ever. 

If  one  ambassador  had  the  negligence  or  temerity 
to  deUver  an  instrument  into  the  hands  of  an 
emperor,  rough  and  red-hot,  another^  was  more 
conciliating  and  more  circumspect.  When  the 
most  lovely  queen  in  the  universe  was  overturned 
in  her  carriage,  on  a  road  where  the  enemy  was 
pursuing  her,  while  the  cannon  was  heard  louder 
and  louder  at  every  discharge,  he  wished  to  know 
whether  he  could  lend  her  any  assistance,  and — rode 
on.  He  never  saw  the  members  of  government, 
never  asked  one  question  of  those  who  came 
forward  to  give  him  information,  listened  to 
nothing,  accepted  no  hospitality,  rejected  all  ser- 
vices, dismissed  with  impatience  and  rudeness 
those  who  offered  any,  and  brought  back  no  other 
intelligence  than  that  Napoleon  had  gained  a  sort 
of  victory,  that  the   roads  were   very  sandy  and 


^  Viscount  Morpeth,  afterwards  sixth  Earl  of  Carlisle  (died  1848), 
was  sent  on  a  mission  to  Prussia  in  October,  1806.  Sir  George 
Jackson  wrote  that,  after  the  battle  of  Jena  (October  14),  "  Morpeth 
and  his  party  had  to  run  for  it."  "  Lord  Morpeth,"  Lady  Errol  wrote, 
''  is  a  fine  person  to  scud,  like  a  child,  frighten'd  and  run  away,  and 
burnt  his  papers,  and  yet  can't  tell  anything  but  what  he  heard  from  a 
few  mad,  cowardly  runaways  like  himself."  See  Miss  Festing's  Frere 
and  his  Friends,  p.  138. 


DIPLOMATIC   INEPTNESS  181 

heavy,  that  persons  of  condition  could  not  ride 
along  them  expeditiously  or  comfortably  ;  and,  by 
way  of  after-thought  and  reminiscence,  that  he 
passed  the  Queen  of  Prussia,  thrown  out  of  her 
carriage,  dead  or  alive  he  could  not  say  positively, 
and  that  the  duke  of  Brunswick  too  had  met  with 
an  accident.  It  is  proper  to  choose  ambassadors 
from  men  of  good  breeding.  If  they  are  too 
inquisitive  they  may  hear  unpleasant  things,  and 
the  money  they  disburse  for  secret  services  may 
be  distributed  among  people  of  no  rank  and 
character.  I  know  not  whether  it  was  an  ambas- 
sador or  a  general  who  weighed  a  whisker  against 
a  religion,  and  a  turban  against  an  empire ;  but 
he  certainly  showed  a  most  laudable  zeal  for  the 
uniformity  and  efficacy  of  the  service. 

What  information  and  intuition  were  requisite 
for  an  ambassador  in  Spain  or  Sicily !  Yet  we 
still  continue  to  pursue  our  former  follies  ;  and  a 
knowledge  of  the  people,  and  even  of  the  language, 
is  considered  as  a  matter  of  indifference — well 
enough,  but  a  superfluity.  Agents  of  every  rank 
and  description  were  sent  into  Spain.  Young 
men  were  highly  flattered  by  a  cordial  reception 
from  the  members  of  government,  who  in  their 
turn  were  flattered  just  as  highly  by  receiving 
any  thing  in  the  form  of  a  minister  from  a  foreign 
court.     The  res  dura  et  regrii  noviias,^  were  never 

^  Virjfil,  jEneid,  i.  663. 


182  COURT   OF   BONAPARTE 

once  considered  on  either  side.  It  was  pleasanter 
to  experience  marks  of  attention  and  respect  from 
persons  of  rank  and  power,  than  to  collect  the 
most  useful  pieces  of  information,  which  lay  more 
widely  scattered,  and  were  to  be  given  by  coarser 
hands.  I  found  a  disposition  in  the  higher  orders 
to  rely  too  much  on  the  English.  Magazines 
were  stored  up  at  Coruna,  and  other  places,  of 
arms,  ammunition,  clothing,  while  the  army  of 
Blake  was  incapable  of  moving  from  Aguilar, 
after  the  battle  of  Medina  del  Rio  Seco,^  for 
want  of  these  very  necessaries.  Our  communica- 
tions should  have  been  direct  with  the  armies  on 
the  coast,  between  our  naval  officers  and  their 
mihtary.  Every  movement  should  have  been  con- 
certed and  combined.  Great  part  of  our  fleet, 
lying  idle  before  Brest,  should  occasionally  have 
acted  as  far  as  Bilbao.  Bayonne,  San  Sebastian, 
Passage,  should  have  been  blockaded  ;  Santona,^ 
which    was    totally    unfortified,   without    a    gun, 

'  The  Spaniards,  under  Cuesta  and  Blake,  were  defeated  by  Marshal 
Blessieres  at  Medina  del  Rio  Seco  on  July  14,  1808.  This  opened  the 
way  to  Madrid,  where  Joseph  Bonaparte  arrived  on  July  20.  Southey 
says:  ''Blake  was  thought  to  have  given  proofs  of  great  military  talents 
both  in  the  action  and  in  the  retreat." — Peninsular  War,  i.  395.  A 
month  or  two  later  Landor,  with  a  troop  of  volunteer  cavalry  raised  by 
himself,  attached  himself  to  the  Galician  army.  He  was  engaged  in 
some  petty  skirmishes  near  Aguilar,  and  was  given  the  honorary  rank 
of  colonel. 

'  On  July  5,  1810,  Captain  F.  W.  Aylmer,  afterwards  sixth  Baron 
Aylmer,  of  his  Majesty's  ship  Narcissus,  landed  at  Santona  with  a  force 
of  British  sailors  and  marines  and  some  Spanish  troops,  and  destroyed 
the  French  batteries.  Captain  Aylmer  was  a  brother  of  the  Hon.  Rose 
Aylmer,  and  years  afterwards  made  Landor's  acquaintance  at  Bath. 


THE  PENINSULAR  WAR  183 

without  a  soldier,  should  have  been  occupied. 
The  French  will  make  it  a  fortress  more  im- 
portant than  Gibraltar ;  for  it  possesses  all  the 
same  advantages,  vdth  a  haven  very  extensive 
and  perfectly  secure,  and  the  hills  along  the 
coast,  even  the  spot  that  must  be  fortified,  are 
covered  with  oaks  of  large  growth  nearly  to  the 
summit.  The  town  cannot  be  bombarded,  nor 
the  supplies  of  food  or  water  cut  off.  By  these 
operations,  which  were  neglected  because  they 
were  easy,  and  because  bad  statesmen  never 
attempt  any  thing  but  what  they  cannot  do, 
the  armies  then  pouring  into  Spain  would  have 
been  detained  or  checked,  and  our  alliance  would 
have  produced  the  best  effects  of  co-operation. 

If  these  things  appeared  at  first  too  easy,  they 
were  soon  after  considered  in  quite  another  point 
of  view.  Petty  fishing  towns  were  objects  un- 
worthy of  those  commanding  geniuses  who  preside 
over  the  destiny  of  nations;  but  a  great  military 
road  is  connected  with  these  petty  fishing  towns ; 
some  hundred  thousands  of  cannon-balls  were 
accumulated  in  Passage  and  San  Sebastian ;  several 
pieces  of  heavy  artillery  were  deposited  there,  and 
forty  or  fifty  ships  filled  with  biscuit  and  flour ; 
these  were  defended  by  two  hundred  and  fifty 
conscripts.  To  attack  so  many  ships,  so  many 
vast  heaps  of  cannon-balls,  and  so  many  pieces 
of  heavy  artillery,  as  were  actually  lying  on  the 


184  COURT  OF   BONAPARTE 

ground,  and  wanted  nothing  but  carriages  and 
artillerymen,  is  not  one  of  those  daring  actions 
for  which  an  English  minister  would  choose  to 
be  responsible.  In  the  panorama  which  he  ex- 
hibits to  the  Honourable  House,  the  petty  fishing 
town  is  turned  suddenly  into  an  impregnable 
fortress.  English  politicians  thought  such  things 
impracticable,  chimerical,  contemptible ;  Spanish 
generals  thought  otherwise  ;  but  an  enemy  with 
a  superiority  of  resources  lay  between.  They 
were  soon  persuaded,  by  those  who  could  have 
no  interest  in  flattering  and  deceiving  them,  to 
trust  solely  in  their  own  valour  and  firmness ; 
that  the  assistance  of  the  English  would  ever  be 
ineffectual,  though  it  might,  in  the  beginning,  be 
sincere.  Nothing  was  more  useful  and  important 
than  to  inculcate  this  truth  in  the  right  place  ; 
it  was  inculcated,  and  will  bring  forth  its  fruits 
in  due  season. 

[Page  254. — "  Shortly  after  our  arrival  in  Paris, 
distressing  accounts  (distressing  to  lovers  of  liberty) 
were  daily  brought  from  Switzerland.]  That  coun- 
try (Switzerland)  was  now  suffering  the  horrors  of 
military  oppression." 

Yet  Mr.  Fox  was  paying  court  to  that  co-apostate 
who  occasioned  and  commanded  these  horrors. 

[Page  256. — "  The  aristocratical  governments 
(of  Switzerland)  had  long  disgusted  and  alienated 
the  people ;  and  the  country,  not  feeling  the  same 


MR.   FOX   AT   THE   PALACE       185 

stimulus  which  warmed  them  against  Austria  in 
1300,  fell  an  easy  prey  to  French  ambition. 
Accordingly,]  the  senate  of  Berne  in  1802  sanc- 
tioned all  the  measures  of  Bonaparte,  joined  with 
his  government  against  the  people,"  etc.^ 

Enemies  of  reform,  in  all  countries,  will  do  the 
same  thing.  They  always  have  done  it,  and  they 
always  will.  Those  who  at  this  moment  would 
hear  such  a  sentiment  with  abhorrence,  and  who 
really  think  themselves  incapable  of  such  an  action, 
would  certainly  commit  it.  They  would  attribute 
the  fault  to  the  people,  to  its  violence,  to  its 
contempt  of  their  wisdom,  and  to  that  universal 
disorder  which  never  listens  to  any ;  but,  believe 
me,  they  would  commit  it. 

[Pages  258,  259. — "  On  the  day  of  the  great 
levee  .  .  .  Lord  Holland,  Lord  Robert  Spencer, 
Lord  St.  John,  Mr.  Adair,  and  myself  accompanied 
Mr.  Fox.  .  .  .  Mr.  Merry,  the  English  ambassador, 
appeared  on  the  part  of  the  British  government,  to 
sanction  and  recognize  the  rank  and  government  of 
the  first  Consul  1"T 

Page  260. — "[What  a  subject  he  (Mr.  Merry) 
had  for  a  letter,  in  the  style  of  Barillon,  for  the 
perusal  of  Mr.  Pitt,  or  his  friend,  Mr.  Addington, 

'  ''And  at  length,"  Trotter  proceeds,  "conspired  with  France  in 
stifling  the  last  struggling  sigh  for  liberty." 

^  "  On  November  15  (1802),  Gillray  published  a  caricature  entitled, 
'  Introduction  of  Citizen  Volpone  and  his  Suite  at  Paris,'  in  which  Fox 
and  his  wife.  Lord  and  Lady  Holland,  and  Grey,  are  stooping  low  to 
the  new  ruler  of  France." — Wright,  Caricature  History  of  the  Georges, 
p.  588. 

24 


186  COURT   OF   BONAPARTE 

then  acting  as  Pitt's  deputy,  or  locum  tenens  in  the 
government  I  Mr.  Merry,  then  acting  under  Lord 
Hawkesbury,  the  Quixotic  marcher  to  Paris,  which 
same  lord  was  now  receiving  a  magnificent  present 
of  a  service  of  china  of  unrivalled  beauty  and 
excellence,  from  this  same  new  government  and 
Bonaparte.]  It  would  have  been  an  instructive 
lesson  to  Mr.  Pitt  himself,  could  he  invisibly, 
with  Minerva  by  his  side,  have  contemplated  the 
scene." 

He  !  with  Minerva  by  his  side !  The  goddess 
would  have  appeared : 

Ardentes  oculos  intorquens  lumine  glauco, 
Et  graviter  frendens.^ 

But,  as  for  giving  him  an  instructive  lesson  I 
the  goddess  of  wisdom  had  not  the  attribute  of 
Omnipotence. 

[Page  287. — "At  this  time  an  invitation  was  sent 
to  Mr.  Fox,  from  Miss  Helen  Maria  Williams.^ 
She  requested  the  pleasure  of  his  company  to  an 
evening  party,  and,  to  express  how  much  this 
honour  would  gratify  her,  wrote  that  it  would  be 
'  a  white  day '  thus  distinguished.  Some  of  Mr. 
Fox's  friends  wished  him  to  decline  this  invitation 
altogether,  from  apprehension  of  giving  a  handle 
to  ill-nature  and  calumny.     He,  however,  always 

^  Virgil,  Georgics,  iv.  451.     Wrongly  quoted. 

'  Author  of  Letters  containing  a  Sketch  of  the  Politics  of  France  (1795) 
and  other  works.  She  lived  many  years  in  France,  and  was  described 
by  Samuel  Rogers  as  a  very  fascinating  person,  but  not  handsome. 
'' 1  have  frequently  dined  with  her,"  Rogers  said,  ''at  Paris,  when 
Kosciusko  and  other  celebrated  persons  were  of  the  party." 


AN   ANCESTOR   OF   MR.   FOX      187 

the  same,  disdaining  the  fear  of  suspicion,  and 
unwilhng  ungraciously  to  refuse  an  invitation 
earnestly  pressed,  did  not  agree  with  them,  and 
went  for  a  short  time."] 

Page  288. — "  He  was  aware  that  he  might  be 
misrepresented  for  going  to  Miss  Williams's  con- 
versazione, but  he  was  too  benignant  to  slight  with 
contempt  and  scorn  the  request  of  an  accomplished 
female,  whose  vanity,  as  well  as  a  natural  admira- 
tion of  so  great  a  man,  were  deeply  concerned  that 
he  should  grant  it." 

Can  any  thing  be  so  absurd  and  ridiculous  as 
to  talk  in  this  manner  of  Mr.  Fox  ?  In  what 
respect  was  he  the  superior  of  Miss  Williams  ? 
His  family  was  base  and  despicable.  Stephen  Fox,^ 
in  the  memory  of  persons  but  lately  deceased,  was 
a  gentleman's  valet,  and  was  brought  into  the 
house  of  commons  for  administering  a  medicine 
which  never  enters  the  lips,  and  for  saying,  God 
bless  you.  Sir,  on  receiving  it  back  in  his  face. 
His  master  said  rightly,  "  Stephen,  you  ought  to 
be  at  court,  or  in  the  house" 

'  Sir  Stephen  Fox,  the  grandfather  of  Charles  James  Fox.  "  This 
gentleman,"  Evelyn  wrote  in  his  Diary  (September  6,  1680),  "  came 
first  a  poor  boy  from  the  quire  of  Salisbury,  then  was  taken  notice  of 
by  Bishop  Duppa,  and  afterwards  waited  on  my  Lord  Percy,  brother  to 
Algernon,  Earl  of  Northumberland,  who  procur'd  for  him  an  inferior 
place  amongst  the  clerks  of  the  Kitchen  and  Greene  Cloth  side,  where 
he  was  found  so  humble,  diligent,  industrious,  and  prudent  in  his 
behaviour,  that  his  Majesty,  being  in  exile,  and  Mr.  Fox  waiting,  both 
the  King  and  Lords  about  him  frequently  employ'd  him  about  their 
affairs."  Lander's  story  will  not  be  found  either  in  Sir  George 
Trevelyan's  Early  History  of  Charles  James  Fox  or  in  The  Memoirs 
of  the  Life  of  Sir  S.  Fox,  Kt.  (1717,  reprinted  1811). 


188  COURT   OF   BONAPARTE 

The  political  views  of  Miss  Williams  have  been 
clear  and  undeviating,  so  as  not  to  admit  Mr. 
Fox's  to  a  comparison ;  her  imagination  is  more 
vivid,  her  reading  more  extensive,  her  writings 
more  animated  and  more  correct  than  his.  I 
never  saw  her,  and  have  little  esteem  for  her, 
but  I  will  do  her  justice. 

[^Pa^e  290. — "We  continued  busily  employed 
every  morning  in  transcribing  and  reading  at  the 
office  of  the  Archives  ;  and  as  we  were  never  inter- 
rupted or  disturbed,  I  was  surprised  one  day  by  the 
door  opening.  A  stranger  of  an  interesting  and 
graceful  figure  came  gently  in,  advanced  rapidly, 
and  in  embracing  Mr.  Fox,  showed  a  countenance 
full  of  joy,  while  tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks. 
Mr.  Fox  testified  equal  emotion.  It  was  M.  de  la 
Fayette,  the  virtuous  and  unshaken  friend  of 
liberty  !  .  .  .  Fayette,  at  a  very  early  age,  had 
visited  London ;  he  had  there  become  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Fox,  and  they  had  not  met  again  till 
now." 

Page  291. — "  M.  Fayette,  born  under  a  despotic 
regime,  saw  nothing  in  his  own  country  to  employ 
a  young  and  enthusiastic  mind.  North  America 
attracted  his  attention.  .  .  .  She  was  in  the  infancy 
of  her  strength,  when  Fayette,  animated  with  the 
glorious  cause,  left  all  the  luxuries  and  indulgences 
which  rank  and  fortune  could  procure  him,  crossed 
the  Atlantic,  and  oifered  himself  to  the  Americans, 
as  a  champion  and  a  friend.  He  built,  at  his  own 
expense,  a  frigate,  to  aid  the  cause ;  and,  by  his 
mihtary  and    civil    exertions,   contributed  not   a 


MADAME    RECAMIER  189 

little  to  the   emancipation   of  the  United  States 
of  America  I "] 

Page  292. — "  Whilst  Fayette  thus  promoted  the 
cause  of  liberty  in  America,  his  noble  friend  in  the 
British  house  of  commons  laboured  with  equal 
zeal  to  inspire  an  obstinate  and  unenlightened 
ministry,"  etc.^ 

And  immediately  after  formed  a  coalition  with 
it  and  entered  into  all  its  views !  Yes,  with  men 
who  separated  from  England  all  that  retained  the 
principles  of  a  Sydney  and  a  Hampden. 

[Page  297. — "As  Mr.  Fox  proceeded  in  his 
researches  among  the  Archives,  an  occasional  day 
intervened,  as  he  advanced  in  his  progress,  which 
was  given  to  invitations,  or  visits  of  an  interesting 
nature.  A  dejeuner,  given  by  Madame  Recamier, 
at  Clichy,  at  this  time,  collected  almost  every 
distinguished  person  at  Paris  :  we  went  there.  .  .  . 
So  much  has  been  said  of  the  beauty  of  the 
charming  hostess,  that  it  would  be  superfluous 
to  say  more,  than  that  every  one  was  captivated 
by  it.  But  her  simple  and  unaffected  manners, 
a  genuine  mildness  and  goodness  of  disposition, 
obvious  in  all  she  said  and  did,  with  as  little  vanity 
as  is  possible  to  conceive,  in  a  young  woman  so 
extravagantly  admired,  were  still  more  interesting. 
She  received  her  visitors  with  singular  ease  and 
frankness.     The  house  at  Clichy  was  a  pretty  one, 

'  "  With  respect,"  Trotter  proceeds,  "  for  the  rights  of  humanity, 
and  mercy  for  the  tortured  Americans :  loudly  and  repeatedly  he 
raised  his  voice  in  their  favour,  and  if  he  did  not  convince  the  ministry, 
he  at  length  convinced  the  nation." 


190  COURT   OF  BONAPARTE 

and  the  gardens  extended  to  the  river ;  in  the 
latter  (sic),  the  company  walked  about  till  all 
were  assembled."] 

Page  298. — "  [There]  for  the  first  time  we  saw 
General  Moreau.  The  general  is  negligent  in  his 
dress." 

And  in  every  thing  he  says  or  does.  He  was 
always  fond  of  saying  a  petulant  thing  about  the 
chief  Consul,  and  was  pleased  with  those  who  could 
say  it  better :  a  certain  proof,  if  not  of  his  enmity, 
at  least  of  his  ill-wiU  and  disaffection.  It  can 
hardly  be  said  that  it  was  rancour,  for  there  was 
not  strength  enough  in  him  to  turn  sour,  but 
there  was  a  peevish  disappointment,  a  perverse 
and  languid  vexation.  He  is  respected  and 
esteemed  in  his  family  and  among  his  officers, 
but  his  wisdom  was  more  conspicuous  before  he 
was  crossed  by  fortune.  It  was  of  a  nature  to 
profit  by  that  of  others ;  which  is  perhaps,  in 
political  and  military  affairs,  the  best  wisdom  of 
all.  In  this  temper  he  followed,  and  was  guided 
by,  the  genius  of  Pichegru,  a  silent  and  stern 
man,  who  pointed  out  from  a  distance  the  way 
to  victory. 

Page  305. — "  The  nionuments  franfais,^  disposed 
in  a  manner  the  happiest  that  can  be  conceived." 

'  "  The  Musee  des  Monuments  Nationaux,''  Miss  Berry  wrote  in  her 
journal,  in  March,  1802,  ''occupies  the  whole  emplacement  of  the 
Convent  des  Petits  Augustins.     Here  they  have  brought  together  all 


A   FASCINATING   HOSTESS         191 

Monuments  lose  their  interest  when  they  have 
been  removed  from  the  places  where  they  were 
first  erected.  That  of  Heloise  and  Abelard,  in 
the  center  of  a  quadrangle,  with  some  dozen 
others,  and  a  Httle  stick  of  weeping  willow  bent 
over  it,  did  more  than  lose  all  its  effect,  Paris 
is  not  the  Paraclete. 

Page  313. — "  [Previous  to  our  leaving  Paris  for 
La  Grange,^]  Madame  Cabarrus,  ci-devant  Tallien, 
gave  an  elegant  and  sumptuous  dinner  to  Mr.  Fox." 

Here  are  no  such  remarks  as  were  made  about 
Miss  Williams ;  nothing  is  said  of  Mr.  Fox's 
great  condescension,  no  admiration  is  raised  about 
his  dignity  and  sweetness.  Miss  Williams  was 
distinguished  for  many  and  great  attainments, 
Madame  Cabarrus  for  none.  O'Connor  was  of 
the  party. 

Page  313. — "  [Every  thing  which  taste,  genius, 
or  art  could  contrive,  conspired  to  make  this  the 
most  perfect  sort  of  entertainment  I  had  witnessed. 
Madame  Cabarrus  was  a  most  lovely  woman,  some- 
thing upon  a  large  scale,  and  of  the  most  fascinating 
manners.  She  was  rather  in  disgrace  at  court, 
where  decorum  and  morals  were  beginning  to  be 

the  figures  of  the  kings^  from  St.  Denis  and  every  other  place  ;  all  the 
tombs  and  monuments  of  their  great  men  and  women  ;  in  short,  all 
the  spoil  of  the  churches  and  convents  from  almost  every  part  of  the 
country." — Journals,  ii.  152. 

'  The  residence  of  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  to  whom  Mr.  Fox  was 
about  to  pay  a  visit. 


192  COURT   OF   BONAPARTE 

severely  attended  to  ;  Madame  was  supposed,  when 
separated  from  her  husband,  to  have  been  indiscreet, 
and  did  not  appear  there. 

"  Most  of  Mr.  Fox's  friends  were  at  this  dinner ; 
but  the  surprise,  and,  indeed,  displeasure  of  some 
English  characters  of  political  consequence,  was 
great  at  finding  that  Mr.  Arthur  O'Connor  was  one 
of  the  guests.  This  had  been  done  inadvertently 
by  Madame  Cabarrus,  and  was  certainly  not  con- 
sidered.] Mr.  (now  Lord)  Erskine  was  extremely 
uneasy  lest  evil  report  should  misrepresent  this 
matter  in  England."^ 

Consciousness  of  integrity  is  enough  for  honest 
men ;  the  shades  of  opinion  fly  over  them,  and 
leave  no  mortifying  chill  on  their  bosoms.  I  am 
sorry  to  hear  this  of  Lord  Erskine,  whose  mind 
has  also  been  much  agitated  by  the  Revelations — 
poor  man  I 

[Pages  315— 316.— "On  the  1st  Vendemiare 
(September  23d)  another  levee  was  held,  at  which 
Mr.  Fox  was  present.  ...  It  was  usual  to  invite 
those  present  at  a  former  one  to  dinner  on  the 
subsequent  one.  Mr.  Fox  on  this  occasion,  there- 
fore, dined  with  the  first  Consul.  I  recollect  well 
his  return  in  the  evening  to  the  Hotel  de 
Richelieu ;  he  said  Bonaparte  talked  a  great  deal, 
and  I  inferred  at  the  time,  that  he  who  engrossed 

^  "^Mr.  Fox,"  Trotter  adds,  ''ever  magnanimous,  treated  it  as  an 
unavoidable,  though  unlucky  circumstance.  He  spoke  to  Mr.  O'Connor 
as  usual,  and  lost  none  of  the  enjoyment  of  the  evening  from  an  event, 
which  being  trivial,  must  be  forgotten  when  malignity  was  fatigued 
with  recounting  it." — Memoirs ,  p.  314. 


DINNER  AT   THE   PALACE        193 

the  conversation  with  Mr.  Fox,  debarred  himself 
of  much  instruction,  and  did  not  feel  his  value 
sufficiently.  Mr.  Fox,  however,  was  pleased,  or  I 
may  say  amused.  After  dinner,  which  was  a  short 
one,  the  first  Consul  retired,  with  a  select  number, 
to  Madame  Bonaparte's  apartments  in  the 
Tuileries,  where  the  rest  of  the  evening  was 
spent.  Mr.  Fox  appeared  to  consider  Bonaparte 
as  a  young  man  who  was  a  good  deal  intoxicated 
with  his  success  and  surprizing  elevation,  and  did 
not  doubt  of  his  sincerity  as  to  the  maintenance  of 
peace."] 

Page  317. — "  [Bonaparte  spoke  a  good  deal 
about  the  possibility  of  doing  away  all  diffi5rence 
between  the  inhabitants  of  the  two  worlds — of 
blending  the  black  and  the  white,  and  having 
universal  peace  !]  Mr.  Fox  [related  a  considerable 
part  of  the  evening's  conversation,  with  which  he 
was  certainly  much  diverted,  but  he]  had  imbibed 
no  improved  impressions  of  the  first  Consul's  genius 
from  what  passed." 

It  is  pleasing  and  flattering  to  self-love  to 
discover  something  extraordinary  in  such  charac- 
ters. When  we  first  look  at  them,  when  we  first 
hear  them  speak,  they  strike ;  but  the  second 
sentence  generally  destroys  the  effect  of  the  first, 
the  second  interview  invariably.  The  first  Consul 
talked  of  blending  the  Black  and  the  White.  It 
is  an  operation  in  which  I  should  have  no  objection 
to  hear  that  he  was  personally  employed  ;    but, 

carrying  it  on  with  the  vigour  and  to  the  extent 

25 


194  COURT   OF   BONAPARTE 

of  his  other  operations,  he  would  leave  us  as  little 
of  physical  beauty  in  the  world  as  he  has  left  of 
moral.  In  another  century  or  two,  men  would 
flock  to  the  Tuileries  to  see  the  frightful  faces 
of  Antinous,  Meleager,  Apollo,  and  Venus,  with 
their  strait  legs,  sharp  noses,  and  wavy  hair. 

Page  342. — "  [The  last  day  of  my  stay  in  Paris 
being  one  on  which  a  levee  was  held,  I  went  with 
Mr.  Fox  and  some  of  his  friends.  .  .  .]  Bonaparte's 
former  question  [of]  Etes-vous  catholique  ?  [to  me, 
when  informed  that  I  was  an  Irish  gentleman]  was 
not  repeated." 

There  was  no  dignity  or  politeness,  or  good 
sense,  or  propriety  in  this  question.  Louis  XIV. 
would  never  have  asked  it ;  for,  although  a  bigot, 
he  was  a  gentleman. 

[Page  348. — "  The  government  was  too  recently 
established,  when  I  was  in  France,  to  decide  what 
effect  it  had  upon  the  people."] 

Page  349. — "[The  taxes  were  very  high,  but 
they  were  equally  imposed  in  1802 — ]  there  were 
no  reversions  or  sinecures." 

Nor  are  there  yet ;  no  wonder  we  do  not  con- 
sider it  as  quite  a  regular  government.  Ours  is 
the  one  to  teach  philosophy.  Our  passions  have 
been  well  exercised,  and  are  grown  perfectly  cool, 
and  we  do  not  go  to  our  lesson  in  a  state  of 
repletion.     We  have  learned,  or  ought  to  have 


VIRGILIAN   EPITHETS  195 

learned,  patience ;  we  have  been  taught  several 
very  good  new  prayers,  and  are  put  into  a  frame 
of  mind  to  be  very  sincerely  penitent.  But  I  am 
sorry  to  find  that  there  are  still  some  restless  spirits 
in  the  lower  forms,  who  say  that  if  it  must 
continue  so  with  us  to  the  end  of  the  chapter 
they  care  not  how  much  margin  there  is. 

Page  349. — "[There  was  evidently  now  not 
only  a  commencement  of  a  new  government,  but 
of  a  new  sera  of  things  :  the  radical  change  had 
been  so  great,  that  it  might  be  said,  as  of  a  new 
order  of  things  rising  up — 

Jura  magistratusque  legunt,  sanctumque  senatum. 
Hie  portus  alii  effodiunt :]  hie  alta  theatris 
Fundamenta  locant  alii,  immanesque  columnas 
Rupibus  excidunt,  scenis  deeora  alta  futuris."  ^ 

The  author  is  very  fond  of  long  extracts  from 
Virgil,  which  I  read  willingly  through  wherever 
I  find  them,  and  as  Mr.  Fox  did  not  make  any 
remark  on  this  passage,  I  will  hazard  one. 

The  words  in  italics  point  my  aim.  There  is  no 
epithet  of  which  Virgil  is  so  fond  ;  it  is  the  only 
one  he  has  used  redundantly.^  I  do  not,  however, 
think  that  he  would  have  admitted  it  in  this 
situation ;  it  holds  a  similar  one  just  above  ;  the 
word  was  probably  apta.     Decorations  adapted  to, 

>  Virgil,  uEneid,  i.  426. 

•  Compare  Lander's  Works,  v.  87 :  "  In  reading  the  Gerusalemme 
Liberata,  I  remarked,  that  among  the  epithets,  the  poet  is  fondest  of 
grande  :  I  had  remarked  that  Virgil  is  fondest  of  altu9." 


196  COURT   OF   BONAPARTE 

and  worthy  of,  the  magnificent  scenes  to  be  repre- 
sented on  that  public  theatre. 

I  could,  perhaps,  if  I  looked  into  my  little 
edition,  find  some  other  places  marked,  where 
alterations  might  be  suggested.  We  are  not  to 
fancy  that  absolute  perfection  is  to  be  found  in 
the  writers  of  antiquity.  In  general  they  are 
greatly  more  correct  than  ours,  but  they  also,  and 
even  the  greatest  of  them,  have  their  blemishes. 
The  lines  I  am  about  to  transcribe  are  exquisite: 

Quin  etiam  hyberno  moliris  sidere  classem, 
Et  mediis  properas  Aquilonibus  ire  per  altum ; 
Crudelis !  quid  si  non  arva  aliena,  domosque 
Ignotas  pe teres,  et  Troja  antiqua  maneret, 
Troja  per  undosum  peteretur  classibus  aequor?' 

If  hybernum  were  substituted  for  undosum,  how 
incomparably  more  beautiful  would  the  sentence 
be  for  this  energetic  repetition !  Adjectives  in 
osus  express  abundance  and  intensity  to  such  a 
degree  that  some  learned  men  are  of  opinion  they 
take  it  from  odi,  the  most  potent  and  universal 
of  feelings.  If  so,  famosus,  jocosus,  fabulosus, 
nemorosus,  must  have  been  a  later  brood,  which 
has  increased  prodigiously  in  modern  Italy,  and 
nearly  to  the  same  amount  in  England,  France, 
and  Spain.  Undosum,  however,  with  all  its  force, 
would  be  far  from   an  equivalent  for  hybernum, 

'  Virgil,  vEneid,  iv.  309.     Much  of  the  next  and  following  para- 
graphs was  repeated  by  Landor  in  WorkSj  iv.  123,  124. 


DIDO'S   APPEAL   TO   iENEAS      197 

even    if  hybernum   derived  no  fresh  importance 
from  its  apposition. 

The  passion  of  Dido  is  always  true  to  nature. 
Other  women  have  called  their  lovers  cruel ;  she 
calls  MnesLS  so,  not  for  betraying  and  deserting 
her,  but  for  departing  and  hazarding  his  life,  dear 
to  her,  at  the  instant  he  was  depriving  her  of  hers, 
by  encountering  the  tempests  of  a  wintery  sea. 

"Even  if  it  were  not  to  foreign  lands  and 
unknown  habitations  that  you  were  hastening ; 
even  if  Troy  were  in  existence,  and  you  were 
destined  thither,  would  you  choose  a  season  like  ■ 
this  ?  Would  you  navigate  a  sea  of  which  you  are 
ignorant,  under  the  stars  of  winter  ? " 


CHAPTER  XI 

MINISTRY    OF    ALL    THE    TALENTS 

Death  of  William  Pitt— The  Coalition  of  1806— The  King's  dislike 
of  Fox — Lady  Moira's  forecast — Grenvilleites — Monarch  and 
Empire — Hateful  phrases— The  Irish  Roman  Catholics — Lord 
Grey  and  George  III. — Irish  politicians — A  corrupt  and  venal 
Parliament — Eulogy  of  Sir  John  Newport — Fox  and  Grattan. 

[Pages  357-9. — "  In  the  commencement  of  the 
year  1806,  after  the  demise  of  Mr.  Pitt,  there 
existed  a  pretty  strong  sentiment  in  the  nation, 
but  a  great  deal  more  powerful  one  among  certain 
parties,  that  a  combination  of  rank,  talent,  and 
popularity,  was  imperiously  required  to  support 
the  State.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  much  inclined  to  think  that  Mr.  Fox  had 
determined  to  devote  himself  to  history,  previous 
to  Mr.  Pitt's  death ;  nor  do  I  think  that  event 
would  have  altered  his  intentions,  unless  the  voice 
of  the  people,  reaching  the  throne,  had  concurred  in 
seeing  placed  at  the  head  of  the  ministry  a  friend 
to  the  just  equilibrium  between  regal  authority  and 
popular  rights,  a  man  of  commanding  genius  and 
extensive  knowledge.  Assailed,  however,  by  per- 
suasion, and  willing  to  sacrifice  his  own  opinions  for 
the  good  of  his  country,  his  judgment  and  feelings 
gave  way,  and  he  consented  to  take  a  part  in  the 
ministry,  in  conjunction  with  Lord  Grenville. 

"  He  could  not  be  ignorant  that  such  a  ministry 

198 


FOX   AND   LORD   GRENVILLE     199 

was  unstable.  The  basis  was  without  foundation. 
Even  the  superstructure  was  Pittite,  to  which 
Mr.  Fox  lent  the  sanction  and  grace  of  his  illus- 
trious name.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  court, 
unobstructed  by  Lord  Grenville  and  his  friends, 
might  have  determined  on  placing  Mr.  Fox  at  the 
helm  of  affairs.  Certain  it  is,  that  his  admission  to 
the  sole  management  of  the  government,  or  his 
rejection,  would  have  benefited  the  cause  of  the 
people."] 

Page  358. — "The  voice  of  the  people  reaching 
the  throne,  had  concurred  in  seeing,''  etc.  My 
business  is  not  with  expressions,  but  with  facts. 
The  people  cared  nothing  about  the  matter.  They 
expected  nothing  better,  and  feared  nothing  worse. 
No  event  ever  caused  less  interest  than  the  new 
coalition. 

Page  358. — "Assailed,  however,  by  persuasion, 
and  willing  to  sacrifice  his  own  opinions  for  the 
good  of  his  country,  his  judgment  and  feeling  gave 
way,  and  he  consented  to  take  a  part  in  the  ministry 
in  conjunction  with  Lord  Grenville."^ 

It  would  be  impossible  to  state  a  stronger  fact 
in  any  language,  to  prove  how  utterly  unfit  was 
such  a  saciificing  mind  for  the  management  of  this 
country  at  such  a  crisis. 

It  is  precisely  of  that   order  which  never  can 

•  William  Pitt  died  January  23,  1806.  The  Ministry  of  all  the 
Talents,  with  Lord  Grenville  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and 
Mr.  Fox  aa  Foreign  Secretary,  took  office  in  February. 


200  MINISTRY  OF  ALL  THE  TALENTS 

govern  well  or  be  well  governed ;  for  if  its 
judgment  and  feeling  give  way,  so  slippery  and 
elastic  is  it,  that  nothing  can  rest  on  it  uprightly 
and  stably.  What  must  those  feelings  be,  which 
the  good  of  the  country  requires  should  be  sacri- 
ficed ?  What  must  be  that  judgment  which  contrary 
judgments  can  warp  ? 

Page  358. — "Even  the  superstructure  was  Pittite, 
to  which  Mr.  Fox  lent  the  sanction  and  grace  of  his 
illustrious  name.'''  More  shame  for  him,  then.  What 
he  had  opposed  in  doing  ten  years  together,  he 
sanctioned  and  signed  when  done  I  Honest  men  of 
all  parties !  is  this  right,  is  it  wise  ?  Is  it  not  weak, 
wicked,  infamous  ;  does  it  not  undermine  all  trust 
and  confidence  ;  does  it  not  indispose  us  from  aiding 
in  any  good,  lest,  after  all  our  zeal  and  labour, 
the  object  should  be  abandoned  ?  Speak  plainly  ; 
come  forward  without  turn  or  subterfuge  ;  lay 
your  hands  on  your  hearts,  if  they  are  EngHsh, 
and  answer  this  one  question. 

Page  359. — "  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  court, 
unobstructed  by  Lord  Grenville  and  his  friends, 
might  have  determined  on  placing  Mr.  Fox  at  the 
helm  of  affairs." 

The  court  ?  Who  ?  What  advisers  of  the  King  ? 
George  III.  never  Hked  him,  and  those  about  the 
royal  person  would  not  propose  the  minister  who 
might  displace   them.     They  never  thought  him 


THE   COUNTESS   OF   MOIRA       201 

more  likely  to  be  serviceable  than  his  opponents, 
and  would  not  have  recommended  him  if  they  had. 

Page  360.—"  [Early  in  February,  1806,  the  new 
ministry,  with  Mr.  Fox  and  Lord  Grenville  at  their 
head,  were  called  to  his  Majesty's  councils  ;  and  as 
he  wished  to  place  me  near  himself,  he  required 
me  to  join  him  the  day  after  he  had  received 
his  Majesty's  commands.  I  left  Ireland  with  no 
sanguine  hopes  that  a  ministry  thus  constituted 
could  render  much  service  to  these  countries,  and 
particularly  to  Ireland.]  Lady  Moira,^  whose  name 
and  character  is  deserving  of  equal  admiration 
and  respect,  distinctly  pointed  out  to  me  the 
impossibility  of  the  ministry  existing  long." 

This  woman  had  more  wisdom  than  all  the 
politicians  and  ministers  of  both  parties.  No 
person  in  either  kingdom  was  more  distinguished 
for  sound  sense,  and,  what  will  always  arise  from 
it,  right  principles.  If  Mr.  Fox  foresaw  what 
she  did,  with  the  same  clearness,  he  must  either 
have  been  very  foolish  or  very  base  to  undertake 
any  part  in  the  business. 

'  Lady  Moira,  mother  of  the  future  Governor-General  of  India 
(afterwards  Marquis  of  Hastings).  Before  her  marriage  she  was 
Lady  Elizabeth  Hastings,  of  whom  Steele  said  that  ''to  behold  her 
is  an  immediate  check  to  loose  behaviour,  and  to  love  her  is  a  liberal 
education." — Tatler,  No.  44.  "  I  saw  Lady  Moira,"  Trotter  writes, 
"  after  Mr.  Fox's  death  ;  she  received  me  with  great  kindness,  but 
great  emotion, — she  took  me  by  the  hand,  as  I  addressed  her.  '  We 
have  lost  everjrthing,'  said  she,  the  tears  rolling  in  torrents  down  her 
venerable  cheeks  ;  '  that  great  man  was  a  guide  for  them  all ;  he  was 
their  great  support,  and  now  there  is  nothing  cheering  in  the  prospect. 
For  me,  I  have  nearly  run  my  course, — I  shall  remain  but  a  little 
longer,  but  others  will  suffer ;  the  loss  of  Fox  is  irreparable.' " — 
Memoirs,  p.  364. 

26 


202  MINISTRY  OF  ALL  THE  TALENTS 

I  am  happy  to  read  on.  Here  is  a  just  and 
eloquent  narrative  of  facts,  relative  to  this  illus- 
trious woman.  The  generosity  of  her  heart,  her 
remoteness  from  Fox,  and  her  proximity  to  the 
despicably  poor  creatures  who  managed  the  affairs 
of  Ireland,  made  her  think  more  highly  of  him 
than  her  experience  had  warranted. 

Page  368. — '*  [In  Fox  his  Majesty  at  length  saw 
the  great  shield  of  the  country,  and  by  calling  him 
into  the  cabinet,  on  the  demise  of  Mr.  Pitt,  gave 
a  proof  that  he  had  been  held  in  thraldom  by  the 
overbearing  minister,  who  it  may  be  truly  said, 
could  bear  no  rival  near  the  throne.  There  was 
much  greatness  of  mind  in  the  venerable  monarch 
who  thus  rose  above  the  long  system  of  delusion 
practised  against  him,  and  he  proved  himself 
thereby  both  the  lover  of  his  people,  and  also 
the  ultimate  approver  of  Mr.  Fox's  political  career. 
With  such  an  adviser,  he  now  perceived  America 
would  have  been  unalienated.  Great  Britain  un- 
burthened,  and  France  of  just  dimensions  and 
moderate  power.  Afflicted  as  the  father  of  his 
people  now  unhappily  is,  bowed  down  with  years 
and  infirmity,  it  is  a  consolation  to  his  family,  and 
satisfaction  to  those  who  sincerely  venerate  him, 
that,  with  his  faculties  unclouded,  and  his  health 
unimpaired,]  he  chose  Charles  James  Fox  as  his 
minister,  instead  of  continuing  the  system  of 
Mr.  Pitt." 

1  should  have  said,  Mr.  Fox  was  appointed 
minister,  and  the  system  of  Mr.  Pitt  continued ; 
and  I  should  have  been  supported  by  what  follows. 


FINE   SOUNDING   PHRASES        203 

[Page  369.—"  Had  Lord  Grenville  and  his 
friends  been  thrown  aside,  much  more  would  have 
been  effected,  but]  party  was  too  strong  for  the 
monarch."  * 

I  hate  that  word.  British  monarch  and  British 
empire  are  fine-sounding  words,  but  I  dehght 
sermone  pedestri.  I  Hke  king  and  kingdom  much , 
better,  and  have  no  objection  to  the  phrase  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  commonwealth,  when  it  does  not 
remind  me  of  speculating  agitators  and  shuffling 
demagogues.  Whoever  is  desirous  to  see  more 
on  this  subject  may  consult  Lord  Molesworth's 
preface  to  the  F'ranco- Gallia.^ 

Page  376. — "  [Mr.  Fox's  loss  was  peculiarly  felt 
in  the  cabinet,  on  the  affair  of]  the  Catholic  bill ' 
forced  on   the   King  by   Lord  Grey,  then  Lord 
Howick  [and  Lord  Grenville]." 

When  I  consider  that  the  King  is  the  true 
representative    of   the    English    people,   that    all 

*  "  And  the  genius  of  Fox,"  Trotter  gloomily  adds,  ''  was  thus 
cramped,  thwarted,  and  counteracted." 

'  Franco-Gallia :  or  an  account  of  the  ancient  free  State  of  France 
and  most  other  parts  of  Europe  before  the  loss  of  their  liberties. 
"  Written  originally  in  Latin  by  the  famous  civilian  Francis  Hotoman, 
in  the  year  1674,  and  translated  into  English  by  the  author  of  The 
Account  of  Denmark"  (London,  1711).  The  translator  was  Robert,  first 
Viscount  Molesworth  (1656-1725).  A  second  edition,  with  a  new 
preface  by  the  translator,  appeared  in  1721.  In  this  Lord  Molesworth 
said  :  "  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  many  other  of  our  best  Princes,  were  not 
scrupulous  of  calling  our  Government  a  Commonwealth,  even  in  their 
solemn  speeches  to  Parliament." 

The  introduction  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Army  and  Navy  Service 
Bill  led,  in  March,  1807,  to  the  dismissal  of  the  Ministry. 


204  MINISTRY  OF  ALL  THE  TALENTS 

other  representation  has  been,   at  various   times, 
a  fallacy  and  phantom,  and  the  real  presence  has 
been  vested  and  concentered  in  his  august  person, 
I  am  shocked  at  the  idea  of  any  thing  forced  on 
him,  and  the  more  so  by  a  person  who  received 
at  his  hands  the  most  permanent  and  distinguishing 
marks  of  royal   favour.     I  will  not  trust   myself 
with    the    belief    of    such    an    outrage    on    the 
sovereign,  such  a  scandalous  and  infamous  breach 
of  gratitude  and  loyalty.     It  would   have  been 
high  treason ;   and  although   the   ministers  might 
not  have  impeached   him,   as   they  wanted   only 
his  place,  yet  the  people,  who  pity  the  infirmities 
of  their  king,  and  remember  all  his  good-humour 
and  affability,  would  have  been  clamorous  for  the 
punishment  of  so  atrocious  a  culprit.      It  would 
be  impossible  for  any  king,  after  this,  to  admit 
such  a  person  to  his  councils,  even  if  he  had  useful 
talents  and  graceful   manners.     The   secretary  of 
Mr.  Fox  had  perhaps   more  justice   on  his  side, 
when  he   represented   this   assistant    as    the    one 
with  whose  forwardness,  precipitancy,  and  folly,  the 
minister  had  most  reason  to  be  offended.     It  would 
be  difficult    for  him,  in  these   circumstances,   to 
observe    that    temperance    in    phrase    which  the 
delinquent  had  not  observed  in  practice.     Suppose 
two  writers,  the  one  of  present,  the  other  of  past 
events ;  suppose  them  to  possess  the  same  intelli- 
gence,  and  to   employ  the    same    style,   on  the 


HISTORY  AND   MEMOIRS  205 

misconduct  of  any  minister,  or  the  bad  tendency 
of  any  transaction  ;  still  that  perhaps  would  be 
considered  as  arrogant  or  malicious  in  the  con- 
temporary, which  would  be  received  as  deliberate 
and  strict  justice  from  the  subsequent  historian. 

Thus  a  writer  not  more  powerful  than  a  Roscoe, 
with  sentences  puifed  out  and  highly  coloured, 
like  a  poor  child's  cheek  in  cold  weather,  would 
be  listened  to  as  a  narrator  of  old  occurrences 
more  attentively,  for  instance,  than  a  St.  Simon, 
with  all  his  simplicity  and  force,  if  he  had  published 
his  memoirs  in  his  life.  This  is  a  reason  why, 
in  speaking  of  those  around  us,  we  should  avoid 
the  appearance  of  exaggeration.  Vigorous  minds 
will,  without  effort,  throw  the  obtrusive  and  pre- 
sumptuous into  the  dust,  but  it  is  an  unnecessary 
effort  to  kick  them  up  again  ;  such  people  as 
Lord  Grey  should  be  permitted  to  go  on,  whether 
they  chuse  to  be  crawling  or  rampant,  into  their 
obscurity  ;  it  is  an  idle  and  unworthy  action  to 
intercept  the  peering  ghmpses  of  their  ephemeral 
glory.  When  they  commit  vile  actions,  speak 
them  out :  that  is  a  duty ;  but  nothing  is  gained 
by  expatiating  on  generalities,  or  by  representing 
them  as  more  impudent  and  outrageous  than 
they  are. 

Pages  383-5. — "  [Impressed  with  a  lively  sense 
of  the  value  of  Ireland,  I  stated  to  Mr.  Fox  the 
necessity  of  immediate  and  effectual  steps  to  reheve 


206  MINISTRY  OF  ALL  THE  TALENTS 

her.  ...  I  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Fox's  mind  was 
at  all  at  ease  upon  the  subject  of  Ireland.  .  .  .  He 
did  not  affect  to  say  that  much  could  be  done,  .  .  . 
and  when  I  afterwards  renewed  the  subject,  I  found 
in  him  the  same  feelings.]  It  was  evident  that 
Mr.  Grattan  and  Mr.  Ponsonby,  and  their  friends, 
had  made  no  conditions  for  her  (Ireland).  I 
ever  considered  this  as  a  fatal  dereliction  of  her 
interests." 

The  secretary  and  friend  of  Mr.  Fox  is  always 
sincere  and  open,  and  he  hesitates  not  to  expose 
the  baseness  of  his  Whig  countrymen.  Irishmen 
in  general,  if  any  facts  are  adduced  against  their 
corrupt  and  venal  parliament,  now  happily  extinct, 
or  against  those  remnants  of  it  which  Pitt's 
explosion  has  blown  across  the  channel,  speak  of 
the  utter  ignorance  or  deplorable  misinformation 
of  the  English.  One  would  imagine  they  were 
natives  of  Japan,  in  such  secrecy  do  they  believe 
all  the  events  of  their  country  to  be  involved. 
But  their  country  is  more  interesting  to  us  than 
they  themselves  are  aware.  We  read  more  of 
their  best  informed  writers  than  they  do,  more 
attentively  and  more  dispassionately.  They  fancy 
the  contrary,  because  we  read  other  things  too, 
and  it  is  a  consolation  to  fatuity  that  general  read- 
ing must  be  necessarily  superficial.  No  mistake 
is  greater.  In  the  regions  of  literature  lights 
are  thrown  from  a  prodigious  distance,  and  spring 
reciprocally  from  all  directions.     A  little  reflection 


AN   ILLUSTRIOUS   IRISHMAN     207 

will  teach  the  lower  order  of  gentlemen  that 
points  of  law,  politics,  and  taste,  can  be  discussed 
in  a  better  way  than  by  duel ;  an  ordeal  which 
we  will  reserve,  if  they  please,  as  an  infallible 
proof  only  in  affairs  of  honour  and  chastity. 
There  is  no  occasion  to  extend  its  jurisdiction 
any  further. 

After  lamenting  the  frail  patriotism  of  his 
countrymen,  in  which  the  supersaturation  of 
colouring  should  have  excited  a  suspicion  of 
rottenness,  the  secretary's  mind  might  have  re- 
posed with  decent  pride  on  the  virtues  of  one 
illustrious  character.  There  is  a  man  in  whose 
whole  political  life,  and,  I  have  heard  also,  in 
whose  private,  no  opponent  has  been  able,  how- 
ever invidious  and  acute,  to  detect  an  unwise, 
or  dishonourable,  or  disingenuous  action.  Would 
to  God  I  could  leave  any  doubt  or  uncertainty 
of  the  person  to  whom  I  allude,  and  that  the 
description  were  as  applicable  to  any  other  as 
to  Sir  John  Newport.^ 

This  is  the  man  who  is  destined,  if  any  is,  to 
appease  the  discontents  of  Ireland ;  and  to  soften 
the  fanaticism  of  a  church,  which,  in  the  paroxysm 
of  its   intemperance,   has    assailed   the  peaceable 

'  Sir  John  Newport,  Chancellor  of  the  Irish  Exchequer  in  the 
Ministry  of  all  the  Talents — a  staunch  Whig,  a  genuine  Irishman, 
and  a  steady  supporter  of  Catholic  emancipation.  He  died  February  18, 
1843.  "  Few  men  have  rendered  more  service  to  Ireland.  ...  In 
adverse  times  he  was  an  enlightened  reformer,  a  true,  a  zealous,  and  a 
judicious  friend  of  the  country." — Examiner,  March  1,  1840. 


208  MINISTRY  OF  ALL  THE  TALENTS 

tenets  of  another,  and  staggered  in  every  direction 
from  its  own. 

Page  386. — "[I  am  sure,  too,  that,  had  Mr. 
Grattan  and  his  friends  expressly  declared  that 
they  must  know  what  terms  of  relief  would  be 
granted  to  Ireland,  before  they  could  support  the 
new  ministry,  Mr.  Fox  would  have  found  himself 
strengthened  by  the  demand,  and  that  if  no  other 
man  in  the  cabinet  had  listened  to  their  proposals, 
he  would.  The  Catholics,  helpless  as  they  were, 
having  none  of  their  body  in  the  English  parha- 
ment,  acted  a  wise  as  weU  as  generous  part  in 
relying  silently  upon  Mr.  Fox ;  but  Mr.  Grattan, 
having  become  an  English  member  for  Ireland, 
ought  to  have  insisted  upon  positive  measures  of 
redress  for  her.  ...  I  am  certain  Mr.  Fox  would 
not  have  been  displeased  at  this  conduct.]  He  was 
not  a  man  to  shudder  at  a  division  in  the  cabinet." 

He  might  have  cast  the  rind  very  easily,  when 
an  air  of  popularity  was  beginning  to  play  about 
him.  By  a  simple  and  straitforward  movement, 
preserving  all  his  own  calmness  and  politeness 
towards  the  King,  he  might  have  deprecated  the 
Catholic  cause,  but  strengthened  it  so  enormously 
as  to  terrify  the  court  into  concessions.  His 
coyness  would  make  the  Cathohcs  the  more 
pressing,  particularly  as  they  knew  his  inclina- 
tions towards  them  ;  it  would  at  the  same  time 
be  a  sign,  however  fallacious,  of  deference  to  the 
King's  opinion  and  scruples,  of  firmness  in  resisting 


MR.   FOX'S   ONLY   ERROR         209 

the  importunity  of  his  own  wishes,  and  of  judgment 
in  foreseeing  the  moment  when  it  would  be  most 
expedient  to  accede.  If  a  minister  is  to  gratify 
two  parties,  he  cannot  do  it  without  a  little 
duplicity.  The  only  error  of  Mr.  Fox  was,  that 
he  thought  duplicity  quite  enough  ;  but  on  the 
other  side  of  the  statesman  must  be  dexterity. 
The  admission  of  one  or  two  more  principles  of 
right  would  have  done  the  business.  He  ought 
not  to  have  permitted  any  thing  great  and 
important  to  be  done  without  him  or  after  him. 


27 


CHAPTER  XII 

LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX 

Gatherings  at  St.  Anne's  Hill — Fox  venerated  Chaucer — Spenser's 
Faery  Queene — Dryden's  majestic  verse — Burns,  Chatterton, 
Cowper — Fox  attacked  by  Canning — An  extraordinary  boy — 
Canning's  duel  with  Castlereagh — Lord  Holland  and  Sir  R, 
Adair — Moliere  and  Klopstock — How  it  strikes  the  contemporary 
— "  Public  characters  " — A  modest  biography — The  Oxford 
tutor — Fox's  illness — Retirement  to  Chiswick — The  Prince  Regent 
— Last  days  of  C.  J.  Fox — Capture  of  Buenos  Ayres, 

[Pages  389-95.—"  In  the  spring  of  the  year  1806, 
Mr.  Fox  was  always  happy  to  get  to  St.  Anne's 
Hill  for  a  few  days,  and  withdraw  from  the  harassing 
occupations  of  a  ministry,  which  it  required  all  his 
vigour,  and  all  the  weight  of  his  name  to  uphold. 
.  .  .  He  seemed  more  than  ever  to  delight  in  the 
country.  A  small  party,  consisting  of  General 
Fitzpatrick,  and  Lord  Albemarle  and  family,  found 
their  time  pass  lightly  away ;  Mr.  Fox,  with  a  few 
chosen  friends,  was  also  truly  happy  and  cheerful. 
.  .  .  Lord  Albemarle  was  sincerely  beloved  by 
Mr.  Fox  ;  Lady  Albemarle,  whose  sincerity  and 
naivete  were  very  pleasing,  and  who  was  the  lovely 
mother  of  some  fine  children,  there  with  her,  also 
contributed  to  make  St.  Anne's  Hill  still  more  agree- 
able. .  .  .  While  at  St.  Anne's  Hill,  the  despatches 
were  brought  to  Mr.  Fox,  and  forwarded  from 
thence  to  his  Majesty. 

210 


A   MINISTER'S   DIVERSIONS       211 

"  It  might  be  supposed  by  some,  that  the  cares  of 
his  new  situation  abstracted  him  from  aU  thoughts 
of  his  Greek  ;  but  I  am  going  to  give  a  proof  of  the 
lively  concern  he  continued  to  take  in  every  thing 
relating  to  the  poets.  Early  one  morning,  I  had 
Euripides  in  my  hand,  and  was  reading  Alcestis. 
.  .  .  '  How  do  you  like  it  ? '  said  Mr.  Fox,  entering, 
and  well  pleased  to  think  a  little  about  Euripides, 
instead  of  the  perplexing  state  of  the  continent,  and 
the  complicated  difficulties  at  home.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Fox's  memory  showed  itself  to  be  peculiarly 
powerful  in  regard  to  the  poets.  He  had  not  read 
Alcestis,  and  consequently,  the  admired  passage,  for 
a  long  series  of  years,  and  yet  he  anticipated  the 
very  spot  where  he  expected  me  to  stop,  with  as 
much  precision  as  if  he  had  been  looking  over  my 
shoulder.  I  have  seen  him,  too,  in  speaking  of 
Spenser's  Faery  Queene  and  Tasso,  turn  to  the 
works  of  the  Italian  poet,  and  point  out,  here  and 
there,  lines  and  images,  similar  to  parts  of  Spenser's 
work,  with  as  much  rapidity  as  if  they  had  been 
marked  out  for  him.  Among  the  ancient  English 
poets  he  entertained  a  sincere  veneration  for 
Chaucer,  a  poet,  in  tenderness  and  natural 
description,  resembling  Euripides."] 

"  He  entertained  a  sincere  veneration  for 
Chaucer."  He  entertained  a  sincere  veneration  for 
so  many,  that  we  have  reason  to  suppose  he  had 
little  discrimination.  His  secretary  has  not  produced 
or  commemorated  one  specimen  of  acute  or  elegant 
criticism,  one  striking  or  new  remark.  Chaucer 
is  indeed  an  admirable  poet ;   until  the  time  of 


212  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX 

Shakespeare  none  equalled  him  ;  and  perhaps  none 
after,  until  ours.^  The  truth  of  his  delineations, 
his  humour,  his  simplicity,  his  tenderness,  how 
different  from  the  distorted  images  and  gorgeous 
languor  of  Spenser!  The  language,  too,  of  Chaucer 
was  the  language  of  his  day,  the  language  of  those 
EngHshmen  who  conquered  France ;  that  of  Spenser 
is  a  strange  uncouth  compound  of  words,  chopt 
off  in  some  places  and  screwed  out  in  others. 
His  poem  reminds  me  of  a  rich  painted  window, 
broken  in  pieces,  where,  amidst  a  thousand  petty 
images,  worked  most  laboriously  and  overlaid  with 
colour,  not  one  is  well-proportioned  or  entire, 
where  the  whole  is  disfigured  and  deranged  and 
darkened  by  the  lead  that  holds  them  together. 
This,  however,  is  not  the  principal  fault,  though 
surely  a  great  one :  the  worst  of  all  is  the  dis- 
gusting and  filthy  images  on  which  he  rests  so 
frequently,  and  which  he  represents  with  such 
minuteness.  He  never  attempts  the  terrific  but 
he  slips  back  again  into  nastiness.  Envy  chewing 
a  toad'  is  described  with  all  the  coarseness  and 
laboriousness   of    the   worst    Dutch   painter.      In 

^  Compare  this  with  Laiidor's  verses  to  Robert  Browning : 
'^^  Browning  !  since  Chaucer  was  alive  and  hale. 
No  man  hath  walkt  along  our  roads  with  step 
So  active^  so  inquiring  eye,  or  tongue 
So  varied  in  discourse,"  etc. — Works,  v'm.  152. 
'  "  And  next  to  him  malicious  Envy  rode 

Upon  a  ravenous  wolfe,  and  still  did  chaw 
Between  his  cankered  teeth  a  venemous  tode." 

Faery  Queene,  I.  iv.  30. 


POETS   AND   THEIR   CRITICS      213 

satirical  poets,  such  as  Juvenal  and  Swift,  we  are 
somewhat  less  shocked  at  indelicacy,  because  in 
these  there  is  no  incongruity,  however  little  a 
way  such  scenes  and  images  may  conduce  towards 
virtue  ;  but  in  allegory  we  are  led  to  improvement 
through  delight. 

Uncouth  forms  in  disarray, 

Words  which  time  has  thrown  away, 

would  be  considered  as  blemishes  in  another, 
writing  at  a  time  when  our  language,  if  it  had 
not  acquired  all  its  ease  and  polish,  was  in  the 
highest  state  of  its  maturity  and  strength ;  but 
Spenser  has  been  treated  with  peculiar  lenity 
and  favour,  because  no  poet  has  been  found  so 
convenient  by  the  critics  to  set  up  against  their 
contemporaries.  The  days  of  chivalry  seemed  to 
be  closing  at  this  period,  and  their  last  lustre 
was  reflected  on  his  gorgeous  allegory.  Those 
who  were  opposed  to  Pope  and  Dryden,  such 
as  Blackmore  and  Addison,  and  Shadwell  and 
Halifax,  and  Buckingham  and  Roscommon,  are 
quoted  as  poets,  only  to  show  the  instability  of 
a  premature  and  inordinate  reputation. 

But  I  am  much  mistaken  if  the  time  is  far  distant 
when  the  sound  sense  and  vigour  of  Dryden,  and 
his  majestic  versification,  will  again  come  into  play, 
in  despite  of  the  impediments  and  encumbrances 
brought  together  from  the  refuse  of  his  genius. 


214  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX 

not  more  by  the  bad  taste  than  by  the  greediness 
of  pubHshers.  That  he  cannot  be  read  universally 
is  a  grievous  fault,  particularly  as  it  arises  from 
his  gross  immodesty  and  coarse  allusions.  Enough 
has  been  said  on  this  subject.  Ample  justice  has 
been  awarded  him  in  the  greatest  effort  of  the 
great  Johnson ;  such  is  the  Life  of  Dry  den.  He 
too,  like  Spenser,  complained  of  neglect,  and 
much  more  justly.  In  Dryden  there  is  a  degree 
of  anger  that  his  claims  were  overlooked  and  his 
rights  withholden ;  in  Spenser  there  is  a  lowness 
of  spirits  and  a  peevish  whine  that  he  could  not 
have  every  thing  he  wanted.  Weaker  minds  are 
lulled  with  his  melancholy,  stronger  are  offended 
at  his  unmanly  and  unreasonable  discontent.  It 
would  be  ridiculous  to  compare  him  with  Bums, 
or  Chatterton,  or  Cowper,  yet  in  the  attention 
he  experienced,  and  in  the  largesses  he  received 
from  the  powerful,  how  infinitely  more  fortunate ! 
The  present  reign  has  produced  a  greater  number 
of  good  poets  than  any  in  modern  times ;  but 
the  ears  of  our  kings  are  still  German,  and  the 
Muses  have  never  revelled  under  the  Georgian 
star.  This,  however  disgraceful  to  our  royal  family, 
is  the  reason  perhaps  why  poetry  of  late  has  not 
been  degraded  and  dishonoured  by  flattery  to 
princes  and  ministers,  and  why  we  have  hardly 
one  instance  in  our  days  of  great  talents  united 
with  great  baseness.     Some  of  our  most  admired 


SPENSER'S   FAERY  QUEENE      215 

and  excellent  poems  are,  like  the  Faery  Queene^ 
without  much  order  and  arrangement,  a  deficiency 
which  few,  either  of  readers  or  of  critics,  are 
capable  of  observing.  But  the  construction  and 
proportions  of  a  poem  require  not  only  much 
care,  but,  what  would  be  less  apparent  to  the 
ordinary  reader,  much  genius  and  much  imagina- 
tion. Fitness  and  order  and  convenience,  are 
terms  very  applicable  to  the  epic,  and  if  not 
often  employed,  it  is  because  they  are  not  found 
often.  The  Faery  Queene  is  rambling  and  dis- 
continuous, full  of  every  impropriety,  and  utterly 
deficient  in  a  just  conception  both  of  passion 
and  of  character.  In  Chaucer,  on  the  contrary, 
we  recognise  the  strong  homely  strokes,  the  broad 
and  negligent  facility,  of  a  great  master.  Within 
his  time  and  Shakespeare's,  there  was  nothing 
comparable,  nor,  I  think,  between  Shakespeare 
and  Burns,  a  poet  who  much  resembles  him 
in  a  knowledge  of  nature  and  manners  ;  who,  in 
addition  to  this,  is  the  most  excellent  of  pastoral 
poets,  not  excepting  Theocritus  ;  and  who  in  satire, 
if  that  indeed  can  add  any  thing  to  qualities  so 
much  greater,  is  not  inferior  to  Pope,  or  Horace, 
or  Aristophanes. 

Page  397. — "  In  a  certain  debate,  Mr.  Canning 
attacked  him  with  a  greater  degree  of  animosity 
than  I  thought  becoming." 

No  acrimony  is  becoming,  but  some  is  natural. 


216  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX 

It  is   natural  for  people    to    speak   ill  of   those 
who,  they  are  conscious,  must  think  ill  of  them. 
Mr.  Fox  was  the  patron  of  young  Canning,  and 
treated  him  with  much  kindness.     But  if  Mr.  Fox 
was  very  good   to   him,  Mr.  Pitt  had  the   more 
sugar-plums  to  give.     He  was  a  very  extraordinary 
boy,  and  is   a   very  extraordinary  boy  still.     He 
has  not  grown  an  inch  in  intellect ;  he  has,  how- 
ever, given  one  sure  and  unequivocal  proof  of  his 
abilities,  in  making  Lord  Castlereagh  popular  for 
several  days — as  long  a  time  as  Lord  Castlereagh 
was  ever  thought  of     Those  who  have  read  the 
subject  of  their  quarrel,  and  the  letters  that  passed 
between  them,  will  find  that  one  prevaricates,  and 
that  both  are  answerable  to  the  country  for  the 
loss  of  five   thousand  men,  and  for  the  worst  of 
all  our  badly  planned  attacks.^     Canning  is  among 
those   sour   productions,   which   acquire   an   early 
tinge  of  maturity,  and  drop  off.     It  is  idleness  or 
unwariness  in  those  who  pick  them  up  and  taste 
them,  and  folly   or  shame  in  those  who  do  not 
spit  them  out. 

I  remember  an  odd  paraphrase  of  the  verses 
which  were  written  by  Caesar  on  Terence.^  They 
are  a  Httle  changed  for  the  purpose : 

*  The  duel  between  Canning  and  Lord  Castlereagh  was  fought  on 
September  21,  1809. 

*  Quoted  by  Suetonius,  Opera,  ii.  1118,  Delphin  ed.  "Landor," 
Emerson  writes,  "  invited  me  to  breakfast.  .  .  .  He  entertained 
us  at  once  with  reciting  half  a  dozen  hexameter  lines  of  Julius 
C»sar's  ! — from  Donatus,  he  said." — Engluh  Traits,  p.  4. 


PETULANT   GEORGE   CANNING     217 

Tu  quoque,  tu  in  summis,  o  dimidiate  minister^ 
Poneris,  et  merito,  insulsi  sermonis  amator; 
Acribus  atque  utinam  scriptis  adjuncta  foret  vis 
Puhlica,  ut  aequato  virtus  polleret  honore, 
Unum  hoc  maceror,  et  doleo  tibi  deesse,  Canini ! 

And  thou  art  popt  among  the  great, 
Forsooth  !    a  minister  of  state  ! 
A  Windham,  were  invective  wit ; 
Would  clamour  make  one,  half  a  Pitt. 
Satire  we  have,  and  rage,  and  rant : 
Strength,  spirit,  these  are  all  we  want. 
A  mob  and  massacre  or  two 
In  Ireland,  or  at  home  would  do, 
And  we  shall  see  the  very  man  in 
The  peevish  petulant  George  Canning. 

Page  402. — "[While  Mr.  Fox  thus  appeared 
contented  and  moderate,  constant  and  affectionate 
to  old  friends,  and  attached  to  his  books  and  the 
country,  just  as  when  he  filled  a  private  station, 
he  also  evinced  a  noble  disinterestedness  about  his 
family  and  connections ;  he  sought  neither  place 
nor  pension  for  them  on  coming  into  office ;  he 
secured  no  reversions  or  sinecures  for  himself  or 
them  ;  and  not  a  view  or  thought  of  his  mind 
tended  to  his  own  or  family's  aggrandizement.  A 
beloved  and  most  deserving  nephew,  highly  gifted 
in  point  of  talent,  liberal  and  of  congenial  mind  to 
himself,]  Lord  Holland  was  without  situation." 

Yet  I  believe — for  I  know  nothing  of  him 
personally — no  man  except  Adair,^  is  more  fitted 

'  Sir  Robert  Adair  was  afterwards  Ambassador  at  Constantinople 
and  Vienna.  He  was  the  friend  both  of  Fox  and  Landor,  and  the 
Bobra-Dara-Adul-Phoola  of  Canning's  satire  in  the  Anti-Jacobin. 

28 


218  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX 

for  a  foreign  court.  Good-natured,  frank,  generous, 
and  possessing  a  knowledge  of  modern  languages 
and  courtly  customs,  he  would  be  equally  con- 
ciliating and  observant.  Besides,  any  court  would 
be  somewhat  pleased  that  Mr.  Fox  had  given  it 
a  species  of  preference  in  sending  his  nephew  to  it. 
There  are  some  contingencies  in  which  the  heart 
is  accessible,  even  in  courts ;  this  is  one  of  them. 
He  should  have  sent  Lord  Holland  to  the 
Tuileries. 

IPages  412-14. — "In  the  beginning  of  June  I 
received  a  message  from  her  (Mrs.  Fox),  requesting 
me  to  come  to  him.  ...  I  found  him  rechning 
upon  a  couch,  uneasy  and  languid.  It  seemed  to 
me  so  sudden  an  attack  that  I  was  surprised  and 
shocked.  .  .  .  Henceforth  his  illness  rapidly  in- 
creased. .  .  .  The  garden  of  the  house  at  Stable 
Yard,  since  the  Duke  of  York's,  was  daily  crowded 
with  anxious  enquirers.  The  foreign  ambassadors, 
or  ministers,  or  private  friends  of  Mr.  Fox,  walked 
there,  eager  to  know  his  state  of  health."] 

Page  419. — "[He  now  saw  very  few  persons. 
At  one  singular  interview  I  was  at  this  time 
present.]  Mr.  Sheridan  wished  to  see  Mr.  Fox 
[to  which  the  latter  reluctantly  consented,  request- 
ing Lord  Grey  to  remain  in  the  room.]  The 
meeting  was  short  and  unsatisfactory.  Mr.  Fox, 
wath  more  coldness  than  I  ever  saw  him  assume  to 
any  one,  spoke  but  a  few  words." 

Mr.  Fox  in  private  life  was  a  most  sincere  and 
amiable  man.     If  he  suppressed  in  society  a  part 


A   COMEDIAN   IN   THE   CABINET  219 

of  his  indignant  feelings,  as  a  man  so  well-bred 
would  do,  he  never  affected  a  tone  of  cordiality 
towards  those  whom  he   reprobated   or  despised. 
We  often  find  indeed  in  close  apposition  the  names 
of  Fox  and  Sheridan/     The  conversation  of  the 
day  comes  after  us  into  the  closet,  and  a  little  of 
the  newspaper  sometimes  finds  its  way  into  books. 
By  writing  in  these  newspapers,  or  by  contracting 
a   friendship   with   the   editors,   names   appear    in 
strange  conjunctions,  and  celebrity  is  sustained  for 
many  years.      Mr.    Sheridan    has    written    some 
pleasant  and  popular  comedies,  and  the  critics  of 
the  house  of  commons  may  call  him  the  rival  of 
Moliere.     Though  I  cannot  quite  assent  to  their 
opinion,  or  believe  that  a  comic  writer  ever  existed 
who  could  have  been  the  rival  of  Moliere  (for  if 
Menander     was     only    the     equivalent    of    two 
Terences,^  he  certainly  was  not  the  man),  yet  I 
think  the  French  Institute  erred  most  egregiously 
in  giving  a  preference  over  him  to  the  turgid  and 
vociferous  Klopstock.     However  it  be,  such  people 
are  not  to  be  at  the  head,  or  near  the  head,  of 
those  who  govern  England.     Still  somewhat,  and 
not  little,  is  due  to  Mr.  Sheridan  as  a  member  of 
the  House.     He  has  been  more   consistent  than 

'  "  Though  they  acted  for  many  years  together^  there  never  seems 
to  have  been  a  very  cordial  or  intimate  friendship  between  Fox  and 
Sheridan." — Eart^  Russell's  Life  of  Fox,  ii.  142. 

*  An  allusion  to  Julius  Cajsar's  phrase,  dimidiate  Menander  (see 
p.  217),  which,  however,  had  reference  to  Terence's  custom  of  knocking 
two  of  Menander's  plays  into  one. 


220  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX 

Mr.  Fox,  whom,  if  he  differed  from  him  on  some 
few  occasions,  he  cannot  be  said  to  have  deserted. 
He  is  really  the  most  public  of  all  public  men, 
and  makes  a  very  conspicuous  figure  in  the  book 
which  exhibits  them  to  the  world. 

We  live  in  an  age  when  persons  are  willing  to 
exempt  posterity  from  all  anxiety  and  doubts 
concerning  them,  and  to  guard  their  contempor- 
aries from  any  injustice  or  inattention  towards 
them.  It  is  reported,  and  indeed  seems  evident, 
that  the  greater  part  of  the  personages  who  figure 
in  the  book  entitled  Public  Characters,  have 
written  their  own  lives  and  transactions.  "  The 
winter  of  this  article "  seems  always  to  know  the 
most  private  affairs  of  these  momentous  public 
men.  It  is  seldom  that  any  anecdote  can  be 
added  to  such  very  important  and  satisfactory 
details,  but  I  am  enabled  to  add  several,  if  several 
are  requisite,  to  what  illustrate  one  of  these 
worthies  who,  unhappily  for  literature,  at  least 
for  his  own,  is  recently  defunct.  The  gentleman 
was  so  extremely  modest  in  the  account  he  gave 
of  himself,  that  he  has  omitted  all  those  fine 
strokes  of  ingenuity  for  which  he  once  was 
celebrated,  and  is  still  remembered,  at  the  uni- 
versity.    When  the  excellent  and  beloved  BenwelP 

^  Laudor  refers,  in  The  Letters  of  a  Conservative  (1836),  to  "  the 
gentle  and  saintly  Benwell,  my  private  tutor  at  Oxford."  He  speaks 
of  him  with  the  same  warmth  of  affection  in  a  note  to  the  Imaginary 
Conversation. —  Works,  iv.  400. 


A   REMINISCENCE   OF   OXFORD     221 

(titles  which  rarely  come  together)  was  about  to 
leave  Trinity  coUege  in  Oxford,  of  which  he  was 

a   tutor,    the   Rev.  ,^  one   of  these   "  PubUc 

Characters  "  came  into  his  rooms,  and  presented 
the  usual  felicitations  on  his  approaching  marriage. 
"  Perhaps,"  added  he,  "  since  we  must  lose  you, 
and  your  pupils  must  be  under  some  other  tutor, 
you  will  have  the  kindness  to  recommend  them 
to  my  care." 

"It  is  my  intention,"  said  the  honest  and  calm 
Benwell,  "to  recommend  one  part  of  them  to 
Dr.  Flamank,  and  the  other  to  you."  Disappointed 
and  vexed  at  this  reply,  he  still  had  the  admirable 
presence  of  mind  to  conceal  his  feelings,  and  to 
confess  the  fairness  of  the  proposal.  "  My  dear 
friend,"  continued  he,  "  your  kindness  will  lay  me 
under  eternal  obligations.  I  hardly  know  how  I 
can  ask  you  to  increase  them,  but  as  I  must  write 
letters  of  thanks  to  the  parents  of  those  young 
men  who  are  about  to  become  my  pupils,  and  as 
you  know  my  poetical  pursuits  and  innumerable 
avocations,  will  you  favour  me  with  their  names, 

^  It  is  clear  from  what  Southey  said  (see  Introduction)  that  Lander 
was  referring  to  the  Rev.  Henry  Kett  (1761-1826),  fellow  and  tutor  of 
Trinity  College^  Oxford.  There  is  a  sketch  of  this  gentleman  in  Public 
Characters  for  1805,  where  it  is  said  :  "  Perhaps  Mr.  Kett  has  conferred 
more  honour  on  the  University  than  any  other  individual  now  resident 
there  ;  his  name  is  familiar  to  every  scholar,  and  very  few  learned  men 
of  any  nation  visit  Oxford  without  obtaining  an  introduction  to  him." 
Landor  ridiculed  him  both  in  prose  and  verse.  One  epigram  is  quoted 
in  Crabb  Robinson's  Diary,  ii.  482  ;  and  others  in  Heroic  Idyls,  pp. 
177,  204.     But  he  was  not  "recently  defunct"  in  1812. 


222  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX 

that   I   may  lose  no  time  ? "      Benwell    did    so. 

Mr. immediately  wrote  to  the  parents  of  all 

the  others^  to  solicit  the  patronage  of  them,  "  as 
the  college  was  about  to  lose  the  talents  of  his 
dear  and  intimate  friend  Mr.  Benwell." 

He  thus  endeavoured  to  obtain  all  the  pupils ; 
one  half  by  Mr.  BenweU's  recommendation,  the 
other  by  his  own  dexterity ;  and  that  he  never 
mentioned  this  piece  of  address,  is  a  certain  proof 
that  he  deserved  all  the  favour  and  patronage  he 
sohcited.  But  it  was  not  of  a  nature  to  be  long 
concealed  :  it  was  a  jewel  of  such  magnitude  and 
clearness  that,  on  its  first  discovery,  it  threw  a 
Hght  on  a  profusion  of  others  in  the  same  vein, 
and  encouraged  both  enemies  and  friends  to  pursue 
the  examination.  I  heard  the  anecdote  from  a 
fellow  of  his  college,  who  also  gave  several  more, 
equally  plain   and   circumstantial,   and  which   do 

equal  credit  to  Mr. 's  abilities  and  virtues.    The 

doctor  referred  me  to  so  many  witnesses,  for  so 
many  and  such  surprising  proofs  of  talent,  that  I 
could  not  cease  from  admiring,  more  and  more,  a 
character  so  indefatigable,  so  resolute,  and  so 
candid,  and  discoveries  of  such  intricacy  laid  open 
unreservedly  to  the  world. 

Page  423. — ["  The  Duke  of  Devonshire  offered 
him  (Mr.  Fox)  the  use  of  Chiswick  House  as  a 
resting-place,  from  whence,  if  he  gained  strength 
enough,  he  might  proceed  to  St.  Anne's.  .  .  .  Two 


DESERTED   BY   COLLEAGUES     223 

or  three  days  before  he  was  removed  to  Chis- 
wick  House,  Mr.  Fox  sent  for  me,  and  with 
marked  hesitation  and  anxiety,  as  if  he  much 
wished  it,  and  yet  was  unwilHng  to  ask  it,  informed 
me  of  his  plan  of  going  to  Chiswick  House,  re- 
questing me  to  form  one  of  the  family  there.  .  .  . 
About  the  end  of  July  Mrs.  Fox  and  he  went 
there,  and  on  the  following  day  I  joined  them."] 

Pages  436-7. — ["  As  his  disorder  had  become 
entirely  confirmed,  and  little  or  no  hope  existed 
of  his  recovery,  the  cabinet  ceased  to  look  to  him 
for  advice ;  and,  before  his  great  mind  was 
harassed  by  the  second  inroad  made  by  the  dis- 
order,] they,  the  other  ministers,  seemed  to  hold 
his  retreat  to  Chiswick  as  a  virtual  resignation  of 
office.  Lord  Grenville  never  came  there  ;  Lord 
Grey,  I  think,  rarely." 

We  knew  his  abilities  and  principles  before ;  we 
now  know  his  feelings. 

Page  438. — "  Had  I  seen  them  catching  from  his 
lips  those  admonitions  which  those  who  are  leaving 
the  world  give  with  peculiar  effect,  I  should  have 
augured  better  of  the  coming  time." 

The  person  to  whom  he  alludes  in  particular,  not 
only  has  no  wisdom,  but  has  no  receptacle  to  catch 
it.  He  and  his  colleague  might  at  least  have  had 
the  common  politeness,  the  mere  decency,  to 
inquire  if  Mr.  Fox's  health  permitted  him  to  give 
his  advice.  They  acted  not  as  if  he  were  deprived 
of  health,  but  of  understanding.     Even  in  that 


224  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH  OF  FOX 

case,  unless  he  had  resigned  his  office,  it  was  their 
duty,  and  it  could  have  done  them  no  disservice,  to 
ask  of  him  what  was  his  opinion.  A  trait  of  such 
gross  brutality  is  disgraceful  to  the  very  name  of 
England.  The  prince  regent  will  read  of  it  with 
horror ;  judging  from  those  noblemen  who  have 
been  most  about  his  person,  he  will  find  it  difficult 
to  believe  that  any  one  of  that  rank  should  have 
been  so  indiffisrent  to  decent  manners,  so  insensible 
to  common  humanity.  He  may  listen  to  some 
excuses  for  the  deserter  of  his  party,  none  will  he 
endure  for  the  deserter  of  his  friend.  He  will 
never  employ  such  wretches.  We  shall  owe  to  the 
exposure  of  their  hearts  what  the  exposure  of  their 
intellect  solicited  in  vain. 

It  is  delightful  to  turn  from  these  hard-featured, 
dry,  afievTjva  KapiQva,^  towards  the  benevolent 
author  of  the  Memoirs.  His  feelings,  at  times, 
give  him  all  the  air  and  character  of  genius.  A 
pure  and  energetic  warmth  elevates  his  imagination 
when  he  describes  his  friend  gazing  on  the  berries 
of  the  mountain-ash,  from  the  window  at  Chiswick. 
The  description  is  not  unworthy  of  Rousseau. 

[Page  450. — *'  A  few  days  before  the  termination 
of  his  mortal  career,  he  said  to  me  at  night, '  Holland 
thinks  me  worse  than  1  am ' ;  and,  in  fact,  the 
appearances  were  singularly  delusive,  not  a  week 
before  he  expired.     In  the  day  he  arose,  and  walked 

*  NcKvo)!/  dfifvrjva  Kaprji/a. — HoMER^  Odyssey,  xi.  29.  ^ 


FAREWELL   TO   NATURE  225 

a  little,  and  his  looks  were  not  ghastly  or  alarming 
by  any  means.  Often  did  he  latterly  walk  to  his 
window  to  gaze  on  the  berries  of  the  mountain-ash, 
which  hung  clustering  on  a  young  tree  at  Chiswick 
House :  every  morning,  he  returned  to  look  at  it ; 
he  would  praise  it,  as  the  morning  breeze  rustling 
shook  the  berries  and  leaves.  .  .  .  His  last  look  on 
that  mountain-ash  was  his  farewell  to  nature."] 

Page  467. — "  [Mr.  Fox  expired  between  five  and 
six  in  the  afternoon  of  the  13th  of  September.]  The 
Tower  guns  were  firing  for  the  capture  of  Buenos 
Ayres  ^  as  he  was  breathing  his  last." 

A  capture  not  less  deplorable,  and  hardly  less 
disgraceful,  than  our  subsequent  defeat. 

*  General  Beresford  entered  the  city  of  Buenos  Ayres  on  June  27, 
1806.  Despatches  announcing  the  capture  of  the  city  reached  £ngland 
early  in  September.  On  September  20,  The  Annual  Register  says,  the 
treasure  captured  from  the  Spanish  settlement  was  brought  to  town  in 
eight  waggons,  on  each  of  which  was  a  Jack  Tar  holding  a  flag 
inscribed  with  the  word  ''Treasure."  The  waggons  were  escorted  by 
the  Loyal  Britons,  commanded  by  Colonel  A.  Davison,  the  rear  being 
brought  up  by  the  Clapham  Volunteers. 


29 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SOME  LETTERS  FROM  C.   J.   FOX 

The  Peace  of  Amiens — Homer's  Iliad — Poets  of  the  sea — Virgil  and 
Metastasio — Advice  to  a  law  student — Blackstone's  Commentaries — 
Robertson's  style — Adam  Smith's  Moral  Sentiments — Goldsmith — 
Dr.  Johnson — Scholarship  in  France — Bonaparte  and  men  of 
learning — Ignorance  of  Greek — Euripides— Shakespeare's  Caliban 
— Supernatural  in  poetry — Allegory — Plato — Collins  and  Shen- 
stone — Thomson's  Castle  of  Indolence. 

[C.  J.  Fox  to  J,  B.  Trotter 

St.  Anne's  Hill,  Oct.  19,  1801. 

"...  You  will,  of  course,  have  been  rejoiced  at 
the  peace,^  as  we  all  are.  ...  I  think  this  place 
has  looked  more  beautiful  than  ever  this  year,  both 
in  spring  and  summer,  and  so  it  does  now 
in  autumn,  I  have  been  very  idle  about  my 
History  J  but  I  will  make  up  for  it  by  and  bye ; 
though  I  believe  I  must  go  to  Paris,  to  look  at 
some  papers  there,  before  I  can  finish  the  first 
volume.  ..." 

"  I  think  in  the  last  half  of  the  Iliad  you  will 
admire  the  16th,  20th,  22nd,  and  24th  books 
particularly.]  I  beheve  the  general  opinion  is  that 
Homer  did  write  near  the  sea-shore." — Memoirs ^ 
p.  497. 

*  The  preliminaries  of  peace  between  England  and  France  were 
signed  in  London,  by  Lord  Hawkesbury  and  M.  Otto,  on  Oct.  1,  1801. 
The  definitive  treaty  was  signed  at  Amiens  in  March,  1802. 

226 


SOME   POETS   AND   A   LAWYER    227 

Virgil,  too,  is  fond  of  describing  scenes  of  the  sea 
and  sea-shore ;  but  Metastasio  is  the  poet  for  seas. 
He  has  turned  more  than  a  dozen  of  them  into  his 
airs.  We  have  hardly  a  metaphor  or  a  simily 
without  a  sea. 

[C.  J.  Fox  to  J.  B.  Trotter 

HfiTEii  Richelieu,  Paris,  Oct.  28,  1802. 

"...  I  suppose  you  will  now  go  in  earnest  to 
law.  I  do  not  know  much  of  the  matter,  but 
I  suspect  that  a  regular  attendance  (and  with 
attention)  to  the  courts,  is  still  more  important 
than  any  reading  whatever ;  ]  you  of  course  read 
Blackstone  over  and  over  again ;  and  if  so,"  etc. 
— Memoirs,  p.  512. 

After  of  course  there  is  no  room  for  if  so ;  but 
to  proceed. 

"Pray  tell  me  whether  you  agree  with  me 
in  thinking  his  style  ^  of  EngHsh  the  very  best 
among  our  modern  writers,  always  easy  and  in- 
telligible, far  more  correct  than  Hume,  and  less 
studied  and  made  up  than  Robertson."^ 

This  last  writer  is  very  finical  in  style,  but  there 
always  is  clearness  in  the  narrative,  and  good  sense 

'  Speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  March  3,  1806,  Fox  said 
of  Blackstone  :  "  His  purity  of  style  I  particularly  admire.  He  is 
distinguished  as  much  for  simplicity  and  strength  as  any  writer  in  the 
English  language." 

*  Pressed  by  Boswell  for  his  opinion  of  Robertson's  History  of  Scotland, 
Dr.  Johnson  said :  "  Sir,  I  love  Robertson,  and  I  won't  talk  of  his 
book."  On  another  occasion  he  said:  "Sir,  if  Robertson's  style  be 
feulty,  he  owes  it  to  me  :  that  is,  having  too  many  words,  and  those  big 
ones." 


228    SOME   LETTERS   FROM   C.   J.   FOX 

in  the  observations.  He  never  is  great.  Through- 
out all  the  extensive  regions  he  has  traversed,  the 
footstep  of  genius  is  nowhere  to  be  traced.  The 
Scotch  authors  are  not  contented  with  English ; 
they  want  something  better.  No  work  is  so 
totally  made  up  of  what  are  called  rounded 
sentences  as  Adam  Smith's  Theory  of  Moral 
Sentiments.  If  his  wisdom  could  not  withstand 
such  meretricious  allurements,  how  could  we  ex- 
pect more  firmness  and  resistance  in  Robertson  ? 
Of  all  modern  historians,  Davila  *  has  most  genius, 
usually  so  called ;  a  dangerously  high  quaUty  in 
their  department. 

I  love  Goldsmith.  The  poet  never  transgresses 
into  the  province  of  the  historian.  There  is 
nothing  profound  or  important  in  him ;  but  his 
language  is  gracefully  familiar,  every  thing  about 
him  is  sufficiently  correct  and  well-placed,  his 
style  is  polished  enough,  and  he  invites  us  by  an 
ingenuous  and  frank  simplicity.  Johnson  in  his 
Lives  of  the  Poets,  Goldsmith,  Blackstone,  and 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  are  the  best  of  our  later 
prose-writers.     Harris,^  Warton,^  etc.,  etc.,  disgust 


*  In  the  Imaginary  Conversations  Marvel  compares  DaAdla  with  Bacon, 
saying  that  they  were  the  only  men  of  high  genius  among  the  moderns 
who  had  attempted  historical  composition. — Landor,  Works,  v.  47. 
Davila's  Istoria  della  Guerre  Civile  was  translated  into  English,  in  the 
seventeenth  centurj',  by  W.  Aylesbury  and  C.  Cotterell. 

*  James  Harris  (1709-1780)  author  of  Hermes. 

'  Joseph  Warton,  see  below,  p.  232,  is  probably  referred  to,  not  his 
young  brother,  Thomas,  Poet  Laureate  in  1785. 


THE   DECAY   OF   SCHOLARSHIP    229 

by  their  frippery  and  affectation  even  those  whom 
their  reading  could  have  instructed. 

[From  the  same  letter 

"It  is  a  pity  you  did  not  see,  while  you  were 
here,  Villerson,  the  great  Grecian,  if  it  were  only 
for  the  purpose  of  knowing  how  fast  it  is  possible 
for  the  human  voice  to  go  without  indistinctness. 
1  beUeve  he  could  recite  the  whole  Iliad  in  four 
hours."] 

Page  512. — In  Mr.  Fox's  letter  from  Paris> 
Villoison^  is  called  Villerson.  He  is  one  of  the 
few  remaining  scholars  now  resident  in  France. 
Those  who  know  little  of  him,  and  do  not  think  it 
important  to  know  much,  will  find  him  mentioned 
in  Wyttenbach's  life  of  Ruhnken.^  Scholarship  is 
so  extremely  low  in  his  country  that,  out  of  near 
seventy  bishops,  I  was  informed,  only  three  were 
supposed  to  be  capable  of  construing  the  Greek 

•  Jean  Baptiste  Gaspard  d'Ansse  de  Villoison  (1750-1806),  Greek 
scholar  and  member  of  the  French  Institute.  He  edited  the  Pastoral 
of  Longus  with  "a.  superfluity  of  erudition^"  and  a  tenth-century  MS. 
of  Homer,  whicli  he  found  in  the  Library  of  St.  Mark's,  Venice. 
Bonaparte  created  for  him  a  professorship  of  ancient  and  modern 
Greek  in  the  College  of  France,  but  he  died  soon  afterwards.  Compare 
Landor,  Works,  iv.  40 :  "  Latterly  we  have  seen  only  Villoison  and 
Larcher  fairly  escape  from  the  barbarous  ignorance  around  them." 

*  Wyttenbachii,  Vita  Ruhnkenii,  Lugd.  Bat.,  1799.  Mark  Pattison, 
in  his  Life  of  Casaubon,  referred  to  Wyttenbach,  Ruhnken,  and  Bentley 
as  rare  examples,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  of  consummate  learning  ; 
but  Ruhnken's  name  may  be  better  known  from  Person's  verses  : 

"  I  went  to  Strasburg,  where  I  got  drunk. 
With  that  most  learned  professor  Brunk  ; 
1  went  to  Wortz  and  got  more  drunken 
With  that  more  learned  professor  Ruhnken." 


280   SOME   LETTERS   FROM   C.   J.   FOX 

testament.  Yet  Bonaparte  had  taken  all  measures 
to  collect  men  of  some  learning.  Under  the  old 
government  no  knowledge  of  Greek  was  thought 
necessary ;  but  the  chief  Consul,  though  contented 
ivith  those  who  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  general 
good  conduct,  would  gladly  have  promoted  men  of 
literature  to  the  vacant  sees.  At  the  time  I  am 
speaking  of,^  I  believe  there  were  near  seventy.  It 
was  the  October  before  the  renewal  of  hostilities 
when  I  heard  the  fact  mentioned,  by  a  person  from 
whom  I  received  some  assistance,  and  many  civilities, 
in  the  national  library  ;  that  there  were  only  three 
who  had  received  such  instruction  as  every  boy  of 
liberal  education,  in  our  country,  has  acquired  at 
the  age  of  fourteen,  appeared  strange  to  me,  and 
the  exact  number  has  been  impressed  more  indeUbly 
on  my  memory.^ 

[C.  J,  Fox  to  J.  B.  Trotter 

St.  Anne's  Hill,  Friday. 

"...  I  am  very  glad  you  prefer  Euripides  to 
Sophocles,  because  it  is  my  taste ;  though  I  am  not 
4sure  that  it  is  not  thought  a  heresy.  .  .  .  Though 

*  October,  1802.     Landor  was  then  staying  in  Paris. 

*  "  When  Calvinism  was  making  a  progress  in  France,  the  Catholic 
bishops  were  learned  men  ;  indeed,  so  learned  that  Joseph  Scaliger, 
himself  a  Calvinist,  acknowledged,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  their 
immense  superiority  over  the  rising  sect.  At  present  there  is  only  one 
bishop  in  France  capable  of  reading  a  chapter  in  the  Greek  testament, 
which  every  schoolboy  in  England,  for  whatever  profession  he  is 
designed,  must  do  at  eleven  years  of  age." — Landor,  Imaginary 
'Conversations,  1824,  i.  221. 


READINGS   IN  THE   CLASSICS    231 

the  two  plays '  of  Euripides  which  you  have  read^ 
are  undoubtedly  among  his  best,  I  will  venture  to 
assure  you  that  there  are  four  others  you  will  like 
full  as  well :  Medea,  Pkwnissce,  HeracUdce,  and 
Alcestis ;  with  the  last  of  which,  if  I  know  any 
thing  of  your  taste,  you  will  be  enchanted.  .  .  . 
Orestes  and  Andromache  are,  in  my  judgment,  the 
worst.  I  have  not  mentioned  Rhesus  and  Cyclops^ 
because  the  former  is  not  thought  to  be  really 
Euripides's,  and  the  latter  is  entirely  comic,  or 
rather  a  very  coarse  farce  ;  excellent,  however,  in 
its  way,  and  the  conception  of  the  character  not 
unlike  that  of  Shakespeare's  Caliban. — Memoirs^ 
p.  516.] 

"  The  character  of  the  Cyclops  in  Euripides  is 
not  unlike  that  of  Caliban  in  Shakespeare."  I 
could  not  help  making  the  same  remark,  in  some 
observations  on  the  properties  and  signs  of  inven- 
tion. The  character  of  the  Cyclops  is  broad  and 
general,  that  of  Caliban  is  peculiar  and  unique ;  it 
is  admirably  conceived  and  equally  well-sustained 
throughout.  What  I  most  applaud  in  it  are  the 
feelings  with  which  Shakespeare  has  endowed  the 
creature.  Another  poet  would  have  represented 
him  as  spiteful  and  malicious,  and  perhaps  without 
any  reason  for  his  being  so,  but  Shakespeare  has 
made  the  infringement  of  his  idleness  the  origin 
of  his  maUce.  He  has  also  made  him  grateful; 
but    then    his    gratitude    is    the    return    for    an 

'  Hippolytus  Crowned  and  Iphigenia  in  Autit,  ■ 


232    SOME   LETTERS   FROM   C.   J.   FOX 

indulgence  of  his  evil  appetites.  Those  who  by 
nature  are  grateful,  are  also  by  nature  vindictive  ; 
one  of  these  properties  is  the  sense  of  kindness, 
the  other  of  unkindness.  But  religion,  and 
habit,  and  comfort,  require  that  the  one  should 
be  cherished,  and  that  the  other  should  be 
supprest.^ 

The  mere  conception  of  such  a  monster  as 
Caliban,  without  these  opposite  qualities,  without 
the  sudden  impressions  which  bring  them  vividly 
out,  and  the  circumstances  in  which  they  are 
displayed  would  not  be,  to  considerate  minds,  so 
stupendous  as  it  appeared  to  Joseph  Warton, 
who  little  knew  that  nil  admiran  is  as  requisite 
to  wisdom  as  to  happiness. 

No  new  fiction  of  a  supernatural  being  exists 
in  poetry.  Hurd  ^  traced  the  genealogical  descent 
of  the  faeries,  etc.,  etc.,  and  fancied  he  made  a  fine 
discovery.  The  sylphs  have  only  another  name. 
Dragons,  and  wizards,  and  witches,  and  giants, 
are  powerful  agents  ;  but  they  generally  prove 
the  imbecility  of  the  writer  who  has  any  thing 
to  do  with  them.  Dreams,  perhaps,  first  produced 
such  images,  superstition  presented  them  with 
attributes,  and  the  poet  brought  all  into  action. 

*  Portions  of  this  and  the  following  paragraph  were  afterwards 
incorporated  in  the  Imaginary  Conversation  between  Landor  and  the 
Abbe  Delille.     See  Works,  iv,  130. 

*  Richard  Hurd,  Bishop  of  Worcester  (died  1808),  in  his  Letters  on 
Chivalry  and  Romance, 


ALLEGORICAL   WRITERS         233 

A  few  writers  have  indulged  in  allegory  who 
have  not  been  deficient  in  genius  ;  for  instance, 
it  is  in  allegory,  and  there  alone,  that  Addison 
has  any ;  delicacy  of  humour,  in  which  he  also  is 
eminent,  can  hardly  lay  claim  to  such  a  quality. 
Plato,  in  addition  to  almost  every  other  talent, 
possessed  one  for  allegory,  but  he  would  not  have 
founded  a  poem  on  it,  nor  have  permitted  it  to 
superabound  in  one.  It  manifests  a  want  of  higher 
invention,  and  those  poets  who  have  indulged  in 
it  have  shown  but  little  taste  or  fancy  in  any 
thing  else,  have  seldom  reached  the  sublime,  and 
more  seldom  the  pathetic.  Collins  ^  comes  nearest 
of  all  to  an  exception,  but  though  he  excels  the 
other  allegorical  poets  in  delicacy  and  proportions, 
he  appears  to  greatest  advantage  when  he  has 
escaped  from  the  trammels  of  this  perverted 
taste.  The  stanza  of  Spenser  is  truly  delightful, 
and  there  seems  to  be  something  creative  in 
its  harmony.  Shenstone,*  a  poor  poet  in  other 
things,  becomes  an  admirable  one  in  The  School- 
mistress. The  languor  of  Thomson  is  graceful 
in  The  Castle  of  Indolence,  and  his  redundancy 
is  kept  within  some  bounds  by  the  stanza. 

It  is  better  to  leave  off  where  reflection  may 
rest  than  where  passion  may  be  excited,    and   it 

'  Landor  thought  Collins's  Hassan  excellent,  but  "surpassed  by- 
Burns  and  Scott." — Works^  viii.  378. 

*  "Shenstone,  when  he  forgot  his  Strephons  and  Corydons,  and 
followed  Spenser,  became  a  poet." — Landor,  Works,  iv.  187. 

30 


284   SOME  LETTERS   FROM   C.  J.   FOX 

is  soothing  to  take  the  last  view  of  politics  from 
amongst  the  works  of  imagination : 

Despicere  unde  queas  alios  passimque  videre 
Errare,  atque  viam  palenteis  quaerere  vitae.^ 

An  escape,  in  this  manner,  from  the  mazes  of 
politics  and  the  discord  of  party,  leaves  such 
sensations  on  the  heart  as  are  experienced  by 
the  disinterested  and  sober  man  after  some  public 
meeting,  when  he  has  quitted  the  crowded  and 
noisy  room,  the  crooked  and  narrow  streets,  the 
hisses  and  huzzas  of  the  rabble,  poor  and  rich, 
and  enters  his  own  grounds  again,  and  meets 
his  own  family  at  the  gate. 

*  Lucretius^  De  Rerum  Nat.,  ii.  9. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

POSTSCRIPl^ 

The  Right  Hon.  George  Rose — Defaulting  members  of  Parliament — 
Portuguese  Royal  family — Flight  to  Brazil — South  America — Irish 
Attorney-General — Legal  cruelty — Italian  vivisectionists — Spallan- 
zani  and  Fontana — Jeffreys  and  Scroggs — The  Laws  of  England. 

I 

It  might  be  expected  that  I  should  say  something 
of  Mr.  Rose's  book.^  I  leave  him,  however,  where 
I  found  him,  and  where  Mr.  Fox  too,  I  am  certain, 
would  have  left  him.  The  King  has  been  graciously 
pleased  to  distinguish  him  by  the  title  of  right 
honourable  ;  I  should  probably  have  distinguished 
him  by  one  very  different,  and  certainly  much 
more  lasting.  But  it  would  have  been  an  un- 
worthy and  most  idle  business ;  for  it  is  only  on 
soft  and  miry  ground  that  such  creatures  can  leave 
any  impression.  Their  impetuous  attack  is  not 
courage,  but  stupidity,  and  their  dissonant  clamour 
is  not  for  our  security,  but  for  their  own  voracious 
and  insatiable  appetite.     Perhaps  it  might  be  cruel 

'  Observations  on  the  Historical  Work  of  C.  J.  Fox,  by  the  Rt.  Hon. 
George  Rose,  1809.  Rose,  who  was  Treasurer  of  the  Navy  in  the  Duke 
of  Portland's  administration,  and  held  the  same  office  under  Perceval, 
was  appointed  to  the  Privy  Council  in  January,  1802. 

235 


236  POSTSCRIPT 

to  break  the  neck  they  stretch  out  so  angrily  and 
so  awkwardly,  yet  it  would  be  a  piece  of  good 
husbandry  to  pluck  them  well,  and  to  turn  them 
up  again  on  their  common. 

If  to  attack  the  opinions  or  the  conduct  of 
Mr.  Fox  requires  the  help  of  distortion,  of  mis- 
quotation, of  falsehood,  I  leave  it  to  those 
right  honourables  whom  Mr.  Pitt  raised  up  from 
obscurity,  and  cherished  for  their  obliquity  and 
baseness,  and  placed  on  benches  where  a  little 
more  dirtiness  would  be  indifferent  and  imper- 
ceptible. I  never  thought  Mr.  Fox  a  very  power- 
ful man,  unless  a  readiness  and  aptitude  in  debate 
can  constitute  it ;  but  no  man  whatever  is  powerful 
enough  to  make  me  a  liar.  If  I  am  less  than 
another,  by  nature  or  by  misfortune,  be  it  so ;  but 
never  let  me  afford  to  the  vicious  an  advantage 
he  could  not  have  taken.  He  who  wishes  to  avoid 
a  blow  may  stoop,  but  he  who  strikes  must  not ; 
and  no  living  soul  ever  yet  rose  up  from  a  false- 
hood with  the  same  activity  and  strength  which 
he  enjoyed  before.  Mr.  Rose  may  be  considered, 
at  least  by  his  party,  as  a  perfectly  honest  man, 
and  I  have  no  inclination  to  meddle  with  his 
integrity,  but  I  must  observe  that  it  is  quite  as 
easy  to  make  a  mistake  in  the  complex  accounts 
of  revenue,  as  in  the  simple  and  progressive  figures 
which  denote  the  regular  pages  of  every  common 
book.     If  any  thing  is  put  down,  or  erased,  or 


HONOUR   OF   PARLIAMENT       237 

added  wrong  in  the  one  case,  it  may  also  in  the 
other,  by  the  same  person ;  and  we  have  seen 
several  instances,  lately,  where  members  of  the 
honourable  house  have  actually  fallen  into  this 
error.  Some,  after  their  misfortune,  have  proposed 
to  retire  into  Wales,  some  into  Portugal,  some 
into  America ;  others  are  not  yet  wiUing  to  remove 
their  stake  from  the  country,  and  continue  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  their  places  and  their  authority.^ 
I  hope  I  shall  always  be  blessed  with  sufficient 
loyalty  to  acknowledge  the  power  of  precedent; 
and  when  I  consider  the  actions  of  the  charitable 
corporation,  in  the  reign  of  George  11.,^  and  the 
countenance  which  was  shown  to  the  greater  part 
of  the  defaulters  by  their  honourable  friends,  I 
think  it  an  unjust,  and  perhaps  an  unlawful  act, 
to  bear  hardly  upon  those  who  have  vacated  their 
seats  by  the  persecution  of  fortune,  whether  they 
go  to  enjoy  the  Christmas  convivialities  of  Wales, 
or  their  affairs  call  them  into  the  United  States, 
or  their  health  requires  the  temperature  of  Lisbon  ; 
and  I  applaud  the  firmness  and  consistency,  and 
right  feeling,   of  the  present  parliament,  in  not 

'  Joseph  Hunt,  M.P.^  late  Treasurer  of  the  Board  of  Ordnance,  was 
expelled  from  the  House  in  1810,  in  consequence  of  the  disclosures 
made  in  the  twelfth  report  of  the  Commissioners  of  Military  Inquiry. 
He  had  already  left,  on  plea  of  ill  health,  for  Lisbon. 

^  Infamous  malversation  was  detected  in  the  Charitable  Corporation, 
formed  for  the  relief  of  the  industrious  poor  by  small  loans  at  legal 
interest.  The  Corporation,  in  some  cases,  took  10  per  cent.,  and 
advanced  large  sums  on  goods  obtained  on  credit  by  ft-audulent  specu- 
lators.— Stanhope's  History  of  England,  ii.  160. 


238  POSTSCRIPT 

rejecting  any  member   from   its   bosom    for  the 
denunciations  either  of  the  people  or  the  laws. 

If,  after  all,  it  appears  to  any  that  I  have  written 
elsewhere  with  acrimony,  let  him  consider  whether 
it  proceeded  not  naturally  from  the  subject ; 
whether  the  juices  were  not  produced  by  the 
soil,  rather  than  by  the  hook  and  harrow.  It  is 
only  a  starved  or  pusillanimous  genius  that  is 
driven  to  a  defence  ;  enough  is  it  for  me  that  there 
never  was  a  bad  man  whom  I  have  not  treated  as 
a  bad  man,  nor  a  good  whom  I  have  not  treated 
as  a  good.  Were  such  the  sentiment  and  de- 
meanour of  all  who  aspire  to  any  rank  in  Uterature, 
and  possess  any  in  society,  more  effectual  benefit 
would  result  to  the  cause  of  virtue,  than  from  all 
the  laws  and  institutions  of  mankind.  The  sources 
of  evil  lie  in  the  higher  regions  of  the  moral  world, 
and  the  stream  descends  wider  and  fouler  to  the 
last.  If  a  person  who  committed  any  kind  of  base 
action  was  not  received  and  countenanced  by 
people  of  his  own  rank  and  condition,  he  would 
not  easily  find  his  way  further.  He  would  be  like 
a  misshapen  rock  whose  support  had  given  way,  and 
which  had  been  precipitated  to  the  bottom  of  a 
mountain,  where,  having  lost  by  its  fall  whatever  was 
romantic  in  its  form,  or  colour,  or  elevation,  a  strong 
earthern  fence  stopped  its  progress,  and  where  the 
husbandman  thanked  God  that  it  had  not  desolated 
his  house,  or  swept  away  the  fruits  of  his  industry. 


SOUTH  AMERICAN  PATRIOTS     239 

II 

By  the  part  we  are  now  taking  in  foreign 
politics,  it  is  much  to  be  apprehended  that  the 
queen  of  Portugal/  whom  heaven  has  deprived 
of  her  intellects,  and  the  prince  of  Brazil,  to 
whom  they  certainly  have  not  been  transferred,, 
may,  by  the  rashness  and  insolence  of  their 
ministers,  and  by  that  insensibility  to  shame  and 
honour,  from  which  frigitives  and  outcasts  never 
quite  recover,  be  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the 
patriots.  Many  in  South  America  would  forget 
the  causes  of  their  indignation,  on  seeing  the  old 
woman  and  her  infante^  first  presenting  grimaces 
to  the  drummer  boys,  and  afterwards  a  suit  of 
embroidery  to  the  executioner  and  his  mistress. 
This  is  horrible  to  me,  who  believe  that  the 
infliction  of  stripes  on  women  is  the  most  certain 
and  execrable  criterion  of  barbarism,  and  who, 
however  much  I  admire  the  Roman  institutions, 
think  those  punishments  superfluous  and  cruel 
which  preceded  their  capital  punishments ;  who 
even  think  that  these  punishments  should  be 
very  rare  indeed,  and  inflicted  only  on  powerful 
offenders,  such  as  have  subverted  or  endangered 
the  constitutions  it  was  their  duty  and  office  to 
protect.  It  is  horrible  to  those  who  have  never 
suffered  by  their  neighbour's  ambition,  or  by  their 

*  On  November  29,  1807,  the  Portuguese  royal  family,  under  the 
protection  of  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  had  left  Lisbon  for  Brazil. 


240  POSTSCRIPT 

ruler's  fatuity  ;  but  those  who  have  seen  foreigners 
invade  their  territory,  and  militate  against  their 
independence,  will  not  perhaps  call  a  people 
excessively  vindictive  in  exposing  the  person  and 
sacrificing  the  life  of  one  or  two  principal  culprits, 
such  as  infamously  stood  aloof  from  danger,  and 
scattered  every  where  around  them  death  and 
desolation.  Perhaps  the  people  of  Buenos  Ayres 
may  mistake  this  most  faithful  majesty  and  this 
most  apostolic  prince  for  some  such  agitators  and 
disturbers  of  the  public  peace,  and,  judging  the 
crime,  not  the  rank  (a  truly  revolutionary  error), 
leave  a  memorable  lesson,  to  all  such  persons, 
how  they  interfere  with  the  concerns  of  a  great 
and  gallant  people,  determined  to  assert  its  inde- 
pendence, and  able  to  defend  its  rights. 

Ill 

I  have  lately  read,  in  a  history  of  Irish  affairs, 
written  since  Dr.  Curry  published  his  Review  of 
the  Civil  Wars  in  Ireland,^  which  work  presents 
also  an  admirable  synopsis  of  legal  transactions 
there,  an  account  of  an  attorney  general,^  who 
brought  gentlemen   of  the   first  respectabihty  to 

'  An  Historical  and  Critical  Review  of  the  Civil  Wars  in  Ireland,  etc., 
by  J.  Curry,  M.D.,  new  edition,  1810. 

'  Southey's  letters  (see  Introduction)  make  it  clear  that  Landor  was 
referring  to  William  Saurin,  appointed  Irish  Attorney-General  in  1807. 
Landor,  however,  unwilling  to  risk  a  charge  of  libel,  is  not  very  explicit 
either  as  to  his  authorities  or  to  his  allegations.  His  attack  on  Saurin 
may  have  been  suggested  by  the  trial  of  Dr.  Edward  Sheridan,  prosecuted 
in  1811  under  the  provisions  of  the  Convention  Act  of  1793. 


TYRANNY   OF   THE   LAW         241 

trial,  when,  according  to  his  own  confession,  he 
beUeved  them  to  be  perfectly  innocent  of  all  the 
charges,  and  wanted  only  to  prove  the  validity 
of  an  unconstitutional  and  most  tyrannical  law. 
Surely  this  is  going  rather  further  than  Jeffreys, 
or  Scroggs,  or  Finch,  or  Page,  whom  we  have 
always  considered  as  the  most  iniquitous  men  on 
record ;  for  they  at  least  pretended  that  their 
victims  were  guilty,  and  had  oflPended  against  a 
known,  a  positive,  an  established  law.  The  amaze- 
ment and  horror  he  perceived  on  the  countenances 
of  his  audience,  sent  him  staggering  into  perjury. 
He  denied  his  own  acknowledgment,  although 
several  shorthand  writers  had  taken  down  every 
word.  Happily  for  us,  there  is  no  danger  of  any 
such  man  appearing,  in  that  or  this  country,  in 
the  present  times. 

This  lawyer  must  surely  be  a  more  impudent 
man  than  ever  appeared  at  the  bar  before,  in  any 
capacity  whatsoever,  and,  in  understanding,  must 

be  far  below 

That  blockhead  Betsworth, 
Though  half  a  crown  overpaid  his  sweaf  s  worth,^ 

•  "In  a  satire  printed  in  1773,  ridiculing  the  Dissenters  for  pretend- 
ing to  the  title  of  '  Brother  Protestants  and  Christians,'  the  Dean 
[Swift],  among  other  ludicrous  illustrations  of  their  presumption, 
introduced  the  simile : 

*  Thus  at  the  bar  the  booby  B— — , 
Though  half  a  crown  o'erpays  his  sweat's  worth. 
Who  knows  in  law  nor  text  nor  margent. 
Calls  Singleton  his  brother  sergeant.'" 
Bettesworth,  M,P.  and  serjeant-at-law,   was   notorious  for  his  florid 
elocution.     See  Swift's  Works,  ed.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  i.  418. 

81 


242  POSTSCRIPT 

who  has  received  his  viaticum  long  ago  from  the 
memorable  dean  of  St.  Patrick's. 

On  another  occasion  he  said,  "he  would  not 
answer  to  any  accusation  which  charged  him 
with  abuse  of  authority,  because  the  public  had 
sufficient  pledges  in  his  conscience  and  oath,  and 
in  his  rank  and  situation." 

Silly  booby !  as  if  rank  and  situation  were 
pledges  against  abuse  of  authority ;  when,  on  the 
contrary,  without  rank  and  situation  there  can 
be  no  authority  at  all ;  when,  indeed,  it  is  this 
authority  itself  which  constitutes  the  rank  and 
situation.  These  three,  clearly  enough,  are  one. 
Take  away  the  authority,  and  the  situation  is  past 
discovery;  take  away  the  rank,  and  the  person 
who  loses  it  loses  also  the  authority.  Pledges 
ought  to  be  weighty  and  valid  in  proportion  to 
the  quantity  and  activity  of  authority  which  may 
possibly  bear  against  us  ;  but  they  cannot  be  given 
fro7n  out  of  this  quantity,  etc.  To  say  that  the 
authority,  which  alone  can  commit  the  abuse 
complained  of,  is  in  itself  a  pledge  against  itself, 
would  be  a  grosser  piece  of  stupidity  than  the 
most  benighted  blunderer  could  stumble  on  "  in 
bog  and  fen ! "  It  requires  a  very  profound 
ignorance  of  human  intellect,  and  a  very  pro- 
found contempt  of  what  is  lovely  and  august 
in  moral  sentiment,  to  cover  the  most  hideous 
iniquity  with  nothing  but  the  most  flimsy  false- 


ATROCIOUS   PROSECUTION        243 

hoods.     We   do   not   weigh   exactly,  and   by  the 
scruple,  how  much  may  be  reposed  on  the  co7i- 
science  and  oath  of  a  person  who  brings  to  trial, 
and  bids   the  jury  to   condemn,  those  whom   he 
declared  he  believed  not  guilty,  at  the  very  time 
he  was  arraigning  them  ;  but  if  we  place  his  oath 
and  conscience  in  the  lump,  against  the  oath  and 
conscience  of  any  pilloried  perjurer  in  the  three 
kingdoms,  we   shall  find  the  latter  character  the 
less  infamous  and  detestable  ;  for  it  is  certain  that 
no  one  of  this  description  has,  by  any  false  oath, 
by  any  malevolence,   by   any   hope   of  profit   or 
promotion,    laid    such    a    dark    and    combustible 
train  for  the  consternation   and    explosion  of  his 
fellow    citizens.      He  was   confident   of  their  in- 
nocence, and  accused  them  only  for  experiment  1 
Spallanzani  ^  has  been  thought  cruel,  and  justly 
too,  for  putting  bats  to  excruciating  pain,  in  order 
to  try  whether  they   could   escape   his   nets  and 
narrow  threads   without   their  eyes  ;   and   so  has 
been  Fontana,^  who   inflicted   on   some  thousand 
animals   the   venom  of  the   viper,  to   remark  on 
which,  and   in  what   quantities,  and  under  what 
irritation,  it  was  deadly  ;  but  this  atrocious  wretch 
involves  his  own  fellow  creatures,  fellow  citizens, 
school-fellows,  next-door  neighbours,  in   the  toils 
of  law,   which   he   bids  their  inveterate   enemies 

'  Lazarus  Spallanzani  (1729-1799),  Italian  naturalist. 

*  Felix  Fontaua  (1730-1806),  Itelian  naturalist  and  philosopher. 


244  POSTSCRIPT 

pull  tight,  in  order  to  try  whether  the  materials 
are  strong,  and  whether  those  whom  he  encloses 
will  survive.  After  such  actions  as  these,  his 
pledges  of  oath  and  conscience,  with  all  their 
tawdriness  of  ostentation,  are  such  vile  and  worth- 
less things  as  no  pawnbroker  in  the  suburbs  would 
give  a  token  for  ;  and  as  to  his  claim  of  confidence 
from  situation  and  rank,  let  us  only  look  back,  to 
save  trouble,  on  those  lawyers  of  past  ages  whose 
example  I  have  cited.  They  possessed  the  same 
situation,  the  same  principles,  with  infinitely  more 
acuteness  and  discretion.  They  joked  over  their 
bottle,  they  enjoyed  their  witticisms ;  yet  were 
they  nefarious  and  blood-thirsty  villains ;  they 
had  a  law  for  every  occasion  but  justice,  and  had 
a  speech  for  every  day  but  the  day  of  retribution. 
It  is  because  men  like  these  possess  rank  and 
situation,  that  we  demand  some  pledge  for  our 
security.  A  pickpocket  could  not  throw  me  into 
prison  for  thirty  years,  or  make  me  pay  thirty 
pounds,  before  he  would  listen  to  my  defence,  or 
even  force  me  to  a  defence  in  court,  unless  a 
jury  had  found  a  true  bill  against  me ;  yet  I 
might  have  grievously  offended  this  said  pick- 
pocket, both  by  resisting  him  in  the  exercise  of 
his  occupation,  and  by  calling  him  what  he  would 
rather  be  than  be  called.  Against  a  pickpocket  we 
have,  or  ought  to  have,  something  of  a  security; 
how  much    rather    then    against    men    infinitely 


THE   JUDGJSIENT   TO   COME       245 

more  dexterous  in  their  fraudulence,  infinitely  more 
violent  in  the  detection  of  it,  who  encounter  no 
danger  in  committing  their  atrocities,  no  difficulty 
in  defending  them,  but  in  whom,  on  the  contrary, 
every  act  of  violence  is  loyal  zeal,  and  every  uncon- 
stitutional maxim  is  legal  perspicacity.  Miserable 
men  !  Suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the 
affairs  of  our  country  are  conducted  with  such 
wisdom  that  there  is  not  the  remotest  danger  of 
any  change  unfavourable  to  you  ;  that  our  strength 
is  imperishable,  that  our  resources  are  inexhaustible ; 
that  there  are  no  beings  more  wise,  more  energetic 
than  you  ;  that  the  tide  of  genius  must  always 
be  confined  in  narrow  straits,  and  run  under,  and 
run  counter  to,  the  tide  of  fortune  ;  yet  the  flatter^ 
ing  unction  which  you  are  laying  to  your  souls 
will  not  render  them  invulnerable  long.  Ye  must 
all,  in  a  few  years  at  the  furthest,  lose  your  "  rank 
and  situation  "  ;  but  your  "  consciences  "  will  not 
be  taken  from  you,  nor  will  the  resignation,  though 
very,  very  voluntary,  be  accepted.  The  fear  of 
God,  so  salutary  when  it  mingles  with  every 
thought  and  action,  and  is  inhaled  with  every 
breath  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  is  dreadful 
when  it  rushes  on  a  mortal  all  at  once,  and  closes 
the  dying  hour. 

THE   END 


INDEX 


Abelard  and  Heloise,  in  Pope, 
49  ;  monument  of,  191. 

Achilles,  Homer's,  134,  136  ;  the 
shield  of,  149. 

Adair,  Sir  Robert,  xxi,  217. 

Addison,  Joseph,  xi,  213 ;  his 
tragedy  of  Cato,  136  ;  failure  as 
a  poet,  136  ;  his  allegories,  233. 

^neas,  Virgil's,  137. 

iEschylus,  compared  with  Euri- 
pides and  Sophocles,  167. 

Agamemnon,  Homer's,  134. 

Agathocles,  174. 

Aeuilar,  in  Spain,  182. 

Alexandria,  114,  126  ;  General 
Mackenzie  Frazer's  Expedition 
to,  63  n. 

Alexandrine  metre  in  French, 
165. 

Alfieri,  155,  171  ;  superior  to 
Euripides,  158. 

Alfred  the  Great,  77- 

Allegory,  233. 

America,  North,  7,  10  ;  war  with, 
xii,  xvi,  8,  80. 

America,  South,  10,  239  ;  English 
designs  in,  19  n.,  52, 68. 

Araiens,  Peace  of,  94,  226  n. 

Amsterdam,  122. 

Antinous,  194. 

Antiphlogistic  philosophers,  161. 

Antonius,  Marcus,  50,  137. 

Antwerp,  113-5. 

Arabian  Nights,  TAe,  143. 

Ariosto,  C.  J.  Fox  on,  148 ; 
compared  with  Alfieri,  165 ; 
with  Boccaccio,  162 ;  with 
Homer,  Virgil,  Ovid,  and  Spen- 
ser, 148, 149, 161,  162  ;  OrUindo 


Furioso,  148,  151-4 ;  fore 
shadows  the  French  Revolution, 
151  ;  pathetic  passages  in, 
153. 

Aristides  "  the  Just,"  49. 

Aristophanes,  157 ;  Burns  com- 
pared with,  215. 

Aristotle,  123,  146. 

Atlantes,  Palace  of,  in  Ariosto, 
151. 

Atterbury,  Bishop  Francis,  on  The 
Arabian  Nights,  143  n. 

Austria,  39,  62. 

Aylmer,  Admiral  Frederick,  sixth 
Baron,  182  n. 

Aylmer,  the  Hon.  Rose,  178  n., 
182  «. 

Bacon,  Lord,  77. 

Balance  of  Power  in  Europe,  37, 
39. 

Barillon,  Henri  de,  French  Am- 
bassador, 54. 

Barker,  Thomas,  painter,  169. 

Barras,  Paul  Francois,  66,  59  n. 

Beguines,  at  Ghent,  112-3. 

Benwell,  Rev.  William,  220-2. 

Beresford,  General  William  (after- 
wards Viscount),  at  Buenos 
Ayres,  18  n.,  225  «. 

Berne,  Senate  of  and  Bonaparte, 
185. 

Bettesworth,  Sergeant,  241  n. 

Bill  of  Rights,  40. 

Blackmore,  Sir  Richard,  physician 
and  poet,  213. 

Blackstone,  Sir  William,  47  n., 
227-8  ;  his  Commentaries,  123. 

Blake,  Admiral  Robert,  77. 


247 


248 


INDEX 


Blake,  Joachim,  Spanish  general, 
xxi,  182. 

Boccaccio,  compared  with  Ariosto, 
162. 

Bolingbroke,  Henry  St.  John, 
Viscount,  81  n. 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  7,  9,  27, 
29,  36,  62,  162  ;  C.  J.  Fox  and, 
66,  98,  177,  178,  192-4;  his 
predominant  passions,  26 ;  and 
the  slave  trade,  64  ;  the  war 
with,  89  ;  and  the  invasion  of 
England,  110 ;  requisite  to 
France,  140  ;  fitness  to  govern, 
163  ;  and  Lord  Whitworth,  178  ; 
men  of  learning  under,  230. 

Borgia,  Caesar,  174. 

Bourbons,  The,  11,  97. 

Brazil,  Dom  John,  Prince  of, 
239. 

Breda,  116. 

Brest,  British  Fleet  off,  182. 

Brissot,  Jean  P.,  66. 

Brooke,  Charlotte,  87. 

Browning,  Robert,  Landor's  verses 
on,  212  n. 

Brunswick,  Charles  John  Ferdi- 
nand, Duke  of,  181. 

Brutus,  44,  50. 

Buckingham,  Second  Duke  of, 
author  of  The  Rehearsal,  213. 

Buenos  Ayres,  Expedition  to,  18  n., 
19  n.,  63,  126,  240  ;  Canning  on, 
19  n.  ;  capture  and  loss  of,  226. 

Burdett,  Sir  Francis,  103-4. 

Burke,  Edmund,  61  n. ;  an  English- 
man, 87  ;  on  the  French  Revo- 
lution, 142. 

Burns,  Robert,  48,  214 ;  com- 
pared with  Shakespeare,  216. 

Bute,  John,  third  Earl  of,  71, 
77  » 

Cabarrus,     Madame,     ci-devant 

Tallien,  191. 
Caesar,  C.  Julius,  24,  44,  60,  96  ; 
'  and  the  senate,  46 ;  his  verses 

on  Terence,  217,  219  7i. 
Caliban,  Shakespeare's,  231. 
Cambaceres,  Jean  Jacques  Regis 

de  (Duke  of  Parma),  27,  170. 
Canning,  George,  xix,  19  «.,  36  n., 

61  ;  on  sinecures,  32  ;  his  duel 

with    Castlereagh,    36  n.,  216; 

Landor's  verses  on,  36».,  217  ; 


his  attack  on  C.  J.  Fox,  215 ; 
an  extraordinary  boy,  216. 

Capital  punishment,  34. 

Carlisle,  Sixth  Earl  of,  180  n. 

Carthage  and  Rome,  88. 

Castlereagh,  Robert,  Lord  (after- 
wards second  Marquis  of 
Londonderry),  on  sinecures, 
32;  duel  with  Canning,  36  n., 
216. 

Castruccio  Castracani,  Machia- 
.  velli's  Life  of,  100. 

Catharine,  Empress  of  Russia, 
106,  173. 

Cato,  44,  60,  96 ;  in  Lucan's 
Pharsalia,  136. 

Catullus,  quoted,  65. 

Cervantes  and  the  romance  writers, 
154. 

Charitable  Corporation,  The,  237. 

Charlemagne,  175. 

Charles  II.  of  England,  96,  116. 

Charles  V.,  Emperor,  111-2. 

Charles  IV.  of  Spain,  138. 

Chatham,  General  Lord,  xv,  21, 
22  n,  30,  36  n. 

Chatham,  Lord,  xiii,  83  ;  his  view 
of  honour,  60  ;  his  greatness, 
69,  70 ;  his  pension,  71  ;  at 
court,  71  ;  "  all  romance,"  72. 

Chatterton,  Thomas,  48,  214. 

Chaucer,  215  ;  venerated  by  C.  J. 
Fox,  211  ;  an  admirable  poet, 
212  ;  his  language,  212. 

Chauvelin,  Marquis  de,  140  n. 

Chili,  Republic  of,  10  n. 

Chinese  Empire,  9  ;  poetry,  166. 

Chiswick,  C.  J.  Fox  at,  223-4. 

Cicero,  Letters  of,  50. 

Claude  Lorraine,  168. 

Climate  and  painting,  169. 

Cloncurry,  Nicholas  Lawless,  first 
Baron,  90. 

Coalition  ministries  of  1783  and 
1806,  83,  86  ;  in  Rome,  86. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  on 
Dryden,  48  ». 

Collins,  William,  233. 

Commodus,  Roman  Emperor,  22. 

Condes  of  Spain,  160. 

Constantinople,  63,  115,  126. 

Correggio,  neglected  in  France, 
168. 

Cortes,  Hernando,  138. 

Coruna,  182  ;  Landor  at,  xxi. 


INDEX 


249 


Count  Julian,  a  Tragedy,  by  W.  S. 

Landor,  x,  xxi. 
Courier,  newspaper,  xxi,  63  n. 
Cowper,  William,  48,  214. 
Crassus,  Marcus,  140. 
Crewe,  Earl  of,  his  copy  of  the 

Commentary,  viii,  xxv. 
Crewe,   Mrs.    (afterwards   Lady), 

56  n.  ;  Fox's  verses  to,  75  n. 
Critical  Review,  The,  18  n.,  146. 
Criticism,  errors  of  contemporary, 

143-4. 
Croker,  John  Wilson,  xv. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  28,  140. 
Cumseans,  Simplicity  of  the,  29. 
Cumberland,  Richard,  51. 
Curran,  J.  P.,  87. 
Curry,  Dr.  J.,  Civil  Wars  in  Ire- 
land, 240. 
Cyclops  of  Euripides,   compared 

with     Shakespeare's     Caliban, 

231. 

Danae,  Myth  of,  163. 

Dante,  164. 

Dantzig,  Capture  of  (1807),  62. 

Dardanelles,  Sir  T.  Duckworth's 

expedition  to,  63  n. 
Darius,  63. 

Darwin,  Dr.  Erasmus,  144-5. 
Davila,    Henrico     Cater ino,     his 

genius  as  a  writer,  228. 
Demosthenes,   45,   76 ;   Fox  and 

Chatham  compared  with,  70. 
Devonshire,  Fifth  Duke  of,  222. 
Diaz,  Ruy,  138. 
Dido,   Virgil's,   her  passion  true 

to  nature,  197- 
Domitian,  Roman  Emperor,  73. 
Douglas,   Marquis  of,  afterwards 

tenth  Duke  of  Hamilton,  179  n. 
Drake,  Dr.  Nathan,  146. 
Dry  Sticks,  by  W.  S.  Landor,  36  n. 
Dryden,  John,   47,   213;   C.   J. 

Fox  on,  48  ;  Coleridge  on,  48  n. ; 

translation     of     Virgil,     132 ; 

Johnson's  Life  of,  214. 
Duckworth,  Sir  Thomas,  63  n. 
Dukes,  tempore  George  III.,  46. 
Dutch,  The,  117  ;  industry  of,  119. 

EiKJEwoRTH,  Miss,  87. 
Edinburgh  lieview,  xx,  24n.,  76  n. 
Egypt,  English  in,  63,  126. 
Eldon,  Lord,  (Sir  John  Scott)  69  ». 


Elizabeth,      Queen,      and      the 

Commonwealth,  203. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  meeting 

with  Landor,  216  n. 
Erasmus,  Letters  of,  xix. 
Erskine,      Thomas      (afterwards 

Lord),  192. 
Euripides,  admired  by  Fox,  156, 

211,      230;      compared      with 

Sophocles  and  ^schylus,  157. 
Examiner,      newspaper,      132  n., 

207  n.;  Landor's  letter  to,  vii, 

xxiii. 

Factory  labour,  120. 

Fairies  in  literature,  232. 

Fellowes,  Dr.  Robert,  x,  xv,  18  n., 
146. 

Fenestella,  Lucius,  123. 

Ferdinand  VII.  of  Spain,  xvii,  138. 

Ferrol,  Pulteuey's  expedition  to 
(1800),  20. 

Fielding,  Henry,  Joseph  Andrews, 
106,  110;  Tom  Jones,  116,  142, 
143. 

Finch,  Baron,  Chief  Justice,  241. 

Fisheries,  119,  121. 

Fitzpatrick,  General  Richard,  99n., 
162  ».,  210. 

Flamank,  Dr.,  221. 

Flanders,  105  ;  people  of,  106. 

Folard,  Chevalier  de,  100. 

Fontana,  Felix,  243. 

Forster,  John,  Walter  Savage 
Landor,  a  biography,  ix  «.,  7  n. 
132  ». 

Fox,  Charles  James,  Landor  on, 
xxii ;  a  mutable  statesman,  15, 
79 ;  and  Hanover,  16,  54 ;  in 
the  Privy  Council,  16 ;  and 
South  America,  17,  52 ;  his 
prophetic  spirit,  18 ;  speeches 
quoted,  39  n.,  61,  64 ».  ;  a 
gambler,  45,  46,  56  ;  his  History 
of  James  IL,  46,  61,  62,  75, 
94,  96  ;  private  letters,  60,  148, 
149,  161,  156  ;  his  French  pro- 
clivities, 56,  66 ;  a  well-read 
man,  65,  99 ;  knowledge  of 
Italian  literature,  55,  99,  155  ; 
moral  character,  66,  67,  73 ; 
letter  to  the  Westminster 
electors,  61  n.  ;  in  private  life, 
74,  97,  126,  218,  219  ;  ideas 
of  limited  monarchy,  81 ;    in 

82 


250 


INDEX 


coalition  ministries,  83,  85  ;  and 
Ireland,  86,  88,  92,  206,  206, 
208 ;  and  the  peerage,  91  ; 
compared  with  Sallust,  95  ;  on 
the  Continent,  95  et  seq.  ;  at 
St.  Anne's  Hill,  104,  111,  127, 
210 ;  his  favourite  passages  in 
Virgil,  127,  128,  139 ;  on  reli- 
gion, 147  ;  liking  for  Ariosto, 
148,  150,  171 ;  opinions  on 
Homer  and  Virgil,  156,  l7l  ; 
meeting  with  Kosciusko,  172, 
173  ;  at  Bonaparte's  levee,  177, 
192 ;  conversation  with  Bona- 
parte, 193 ;  Lord  Grenrille 
and  Fox,  199 ;  admiration  of 
Chaucer,  211  ;  attacked  by 
Canning,  215 ;  Sheridan  and 
Fox,  218;  death,  225;  corre- 
spondence with  Trotter,  226- 
231. 

Fox,  Sir  Stephen,  187. 

Foxites,  xix,  64,  109,  178. 

France  war  with,  6,  40,  62,  89  ; 
conquests  of,  26  ;  government 
of,  68 ;  the  Netherlands  and, 
114.     See  "French." 

Franco-Gallia,  by  F.  Hoflfman, 
203  n. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  77,  80  n. 

Frazer,  General  Mackenzie,  63  n. 

French,  The,  28, 106  ;  their  hatred 
of  England,  109 ;  the  best 
dancers  and  worst  musicians, 
171 ;  unfit  for  self-government, 
174. 

French  Directory,  69. 

French  marquises,  160. 

French  painters,  168. 

French  Revolution,  The,  30,  46  ; 
consequences  of,  7 ;  William 
Pitt  and,  38  ;  foreshadowed  by 
Ariosto  and  Tasso,  161. 

French  theatre,  164-6. 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  169. 
Gay,  John,  The  Beggar's  Opera, 

170  n. 
Gebir,  by  W.  S.  Landor,  xxi,  18  n., 

31  ». 
George  II.,  16  n.,  237. 
George  HI.  and  the  Dukes,  46 ; 

character  of,  80  ;  dislike  of  Fox, 

200. 
Ghent,  C.  J.  Fox  at.  111. 


Gibbon,  Edward,  on  the  Chevalier 

de  Folard,  101  n. 
Gifford,  William,  xiii,  xiv. 
Gillray,  James,  caricature  of  Fox, 

185  n. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  30  n. 
Godeau,  Antoine,  Bishop  of  Vence, 

Racine  borrowed  from,  166. 
Goldsmith,    Oliver,     a    political 

quietist,   81 ;    an  Englishman, 

87  ;   on  fisheries,   121  n.  ;  and 

contemporary    criticism,    144 ; 

praise  of,  228. 
Grattan,  Henry,  87,  206,  208. 
Gray,  Thomas,  71  ;  quoted,  1 69  n. ; 

his  contempt  for  Rousseau,  143. 
Greece,  Republics  of,  122. 
Greek,   ignorance  of  in   France, 

229. 
Grenville,  William,  Lord  (1759- 

1834),   his  sinecure,   16,  17»., 

53 ;  and  the  French  Ambassador, 

140,  141  ;  and  C.  J.  Fox,  198- 

201  ;  and  George  III.,  203. 
Grey,    Sir     Charles,     first    Earl 

(1729-1807),  in  the  West  Indies, 

39  n. 
Grey,    Charles    (Lord     Howick), 

second  Earl  (1764-1845),  xxii, 

92  n.,  203,  205,223. 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  112. 

Halifax,  Charles  Montague,  first 

Earl  of  (1661-1715),  213. 
Hallam,  Henry,  on  Machiavelli, 

99  n. 
Hamilton,  Mrs.,  87. 
Hampden,  John,  44,  77,  189. 
Hanover,  62  ;  Chatham  and  Fox 

on,  16,  54. 
Harris,  James,  author  of  Hermes, 

228. 
Hastings,  Warren,  xi,  xiii. 
Hawkesbury,     Lord,     afterwards 

second  Earl  of  Liverpool  (1770- 

1828),  61,  226  n. 
"Heaven-born    Minister,"    The, 

30  ».,  163. 
Hector,  Homer's,  134. 
H^loise  and   Abelard,   in    Pope, 

49  ;  monument  of,  191. 
Heroic  Idyls,   by  W.  S.  Landor, 

231 ». 
Hesiod,  an  indifferent  poet,  149. 
Hoche,  General  Lazare,  20  n. 


INDEX 


251 


Holland,  116-26. 

Holland,  Henry  Vassal  Fox,  third 
Barou,  164,  217,  224  ;  his 
Further  Memoirs  of  the  Whig 
Party,  17  n.,  21  n.,  23  n.;  his 
preface  to  C.  J.  Fox's  History, 
46,  62,  55. 

Homer,  imitated  by  Virgil,  128 
et  seq.  ;  by  Lucretixis,  132 ; 
characters  in  the  Odyssey,  134, 
136 ;  the  Iliad,  135 ;  incom- 
parable, 135  ;  superior  to  Virgil, 
138 ;  his  contention  with  Hesiod, 
149 ;  C.  J.  Fox  on,  156,  171 ; 
sea  pieces  in,  226. 

Horace,  quoted,  173  n.  ;  Burns 
compared  with,  215. 

Hotoman,  F.,  author  of  Franco- 
Gallia,  203  n. 

Houghton,  Lord,  on  Landor's 
Commentary,  viii,  xx ;  quoted, 
24  ». 

Howick,  Lord.     See '^ Grey." 

Hoyle,  Edmund,  (1672-1769),  on 
Whist,  100. 

Hume,  David,  his  style,  47  n.  ; 
contemporary  critics  on,  144. 

Hunt,  Joseph,  M.P.,  237  n. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  30  n. 

Hurd,  Bishop  Richard,  on  Fairies, 
232. 

Hutchinson,  John  (1616-1664), 
44. 

Hyde  Park,  A  Pantheon  for,  77. 

Imaginary  Conversations,  by  W.  S. 
Landor,  xiii,  xxii,  91,  133, 
166,  166,  172,  196,  232. 

Ireland,  42,  240  ;  and  the  Union, 
86  et  seq.  ;  C.  J.  Fox  and,  86, 
88,  92,  205,  206,  208  ;  William 
Pitt's  treatment  of,  90 ;  com- 
pared with  Poland,  91. 

Irish,  the,  English  sympathies 
with,  87  ;  their  mistakes,  206. 

Irish  peers  of  Pitt's  creation,  90. 

Irish  writers,  87,  206. 

Italian  literature,  55,  99,  155 ; 
painters,  169. 

Jamks  II. ,  of  England,  54. 

Jeffreys,  Judge,  241. 

Jenkinson,    Robert    Banks.     See 

"Hawkesbury." 
Jervis,  Sir  John,  39  n. 


Johnson,  Dr.,  and  his  critics, 
144  ;  Anna  Seward  and,  145  ; 
on  Robertson's  History  of  Scot- 
land, 227  n.  ;  his  Lives  of  tlie 
Poets,  228  ;  of  Dryden,  214. 

Jortin,  Dr.  John,  133. 

Joseph  II.,  Emperor,  105,  173. 

Joubert,  Joseph,  French  general, 
162. 

Juvenal,  213. 

Kktt,  Rev.  Henry,  xv,  221  n. 
Klopstock,  preferred  to  Moliere, 

219. 
Kosciusko,  172-3. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  his  im- 
prisonment in  Austria,  162  ; 
meetings  with  C.  J.  Fox,  188, 
191  n. 

La  Fontaine,  Jean  de,  166. 

Landed  gentry  in  England,  160. 

Landor,  VValter  Savage,  Quarterly 
Review  on,  vii,  xiv ;  letters  to 
Southey,  x  et  seq.  ;  letter  to 
Mr.  John  Murray,  xviii ;  at 
Llanthony,  xxi ;  in  Spain,  xxi, 
182  ;  marriage,  xxii ;  Letters  to 
Lord  Liverpool,  xxiv,  38  n. ,  59  n. , 
1 00  n.  ;  verses  on  Walcheren, 
21  n.  ;  Letters,  Private  and  Public, 
31  n.,  158??.  ;  Apology  for  Satire, 
34  n. ;  Verses  on  Canning,  36  n., 
217 ;  translation  from  Virgil's 
Georgics,  131  n. 

Lauenburg,  Francis  Albert,  Duke 
of  Saxe,  112. 

Le  Brun,  Charles,  168. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  England  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  quoted,  6  n., 
74  n.,  99  n.,  105  n. 

Letters  of  a  Conservative,  by  W.  S. 
Landor,  220  ». 

Livy,  95,  123 ;  on  the  Gauls, 
174  ;  Machiavelli's  commentary 
on,  100. 

Locke,  John,  8,  77. 

London,  Architecture  of,  114. 

Louis  XIV.  of  France,  54;  a 
patron  of  literature,  170  ;  more 
a  gentleman  than  Bonaparte, 
194. 

Louis  XV.  of  France,  70. 

Loutherbourgh^  Philip  Jamea, 
169. 


262 


INDEX 


LouwCj  C.  J.  Fox  at  the,  167. 
Lucaii,  PharsaJia,  136. 
Lucretius,    imitation    of   Homer, 

132,  133  ;  quoted,  234. 
Ludlow,  Edmund,  44. 

Magauijiy,  Lord,  on  Macliiavelli, 

99  ». 
Machiavelli,     99,     100  ;     quoted 

37,  38. 
Mackintosh  Sir  James,  33  n. ,  70  n. , 

75  » 
Madison,  James,    President,   xii, 

xiv,  XV,  xvi,  6n,,  8n. 
Malmesbury,  First  Earl  of,  59  n. 
Marius,  Caius,  160. 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  77- 
Masaniello,  174. 
Medina  del  Rio  Seco,  Battle  of, 

182. 
Melville,  Lord,  34  n. 
Menage,  Giles,  166. 
Menander,  219. 
Merry,  Anthony,  179,  185-6. 
Metastasio,   171  ",   compared  with 

Alfieri,   155  ;   the  poet  of  the 

sea,  227. 
Mezentius,  Virgil's,  128. 
Middleton,  Dr.  Conyers,  47 «. 
Milnes,      R.      Moncktou.       See 

"Houghton,  Lord." 
Milton,  John,  8,  44,  77  ;  Paradise 

Lost,  131 «.,  134-5 
Moira,  Countess  of,  201. 
Molesworth,  Robert,  first  Viscount 

and  the  Franco-Gallia,  203. 
Moliere,    unrivalled   as    a   comic 

writer,  219. 
Monarch,  Lander's  hatred  of  the 

word,  203, 
Montesquieu,  29i 
Monuments  frangaise ,  190. 
Moreau,     Jean     Victor,     French 

general,  162,  190. 
Morpeth,     Viscount     (afterwards 

sixth  Earl  of  Carlisle),  180  n. 
Murray,    Mr.    John,   x,   el    seq.  ; 

Memoirs  of,  xiv,  n.  ;   letter  to 

Southey,   xvii ;  Lander's  letter 

to,  xviii. 

National  Gallery,  wanted  in  Eng- 
land, 168. 

Nelson,  Lord,  77  ;  neglect  of,  90 ; 
at  Naples,  118  n. 


Nero,  6. 

Netherlands,  The,  39  ;  J.  C.  Fox's 

visit  to.  111  et  seq. 
Newport,  Sir  John,  207. 
NeAvton,  Isaac,  77. 
Nichols,  Admiral,  36. 
Nobility,  in  England  and  other 

countries,  160. 
North,     Lord,     second    Earl     of 

Guildford,  38 «.,  77 n. 

O'Connor,    Arthur,    72ft.,    101, 

107,  191,  192. 
O'Neill,  Mrs.,  87- 
Opposition,  The,  79. 
Orpheus,  in  Virgil,  129  et  seq. 
Otway,  Thomas,  48. 
Ovid,  compared  with  Ariosto,  149, 

151 ;  his  epistles,  152  ;  quoted, 

152. 

Page,  Sir  Francis,  "  the  hanging 

judge,"  241. 
Painters,    French,    Italian,    and 

English,  168-9. 
Palafox  y  Melzi,  Jose  de,  "hero 

ofZaragoza,"  138,  172. 
Paraguay,  10  n. 
Paris,  in  Homer,  134. 
Parr,    Dr.     Samuel,    xviii,    xxi ; 

and  C.  J.  Fox,  147. 
Pascal,  Blaise,  76. 
Peerage,  C.  J.  Fox  and  the,  91  ; 

William  Pitt  and  the,  45. 
Pelayo,  138. 
Pellew,  Sir  E.,  20  n. 
Penn,  William,  77. 
Pentameron,  rAe,by  W.  S.  Landor, 

44  n. 
Perceval,  Spencer,  36».,  41. 
Pericles  and  Aspasia,   by  W.   S. 

Landor,  xxiii,  153 
Peterborough,  Charles  Mordaunt, 

Earl  oi,  xi,  xiii. 
Pharsalia,  Caesar  and  Pompey  at, 

24 ;  Lucan's,  136. 
Pichegru,  Charles,  French  general, 

190. 
Pindar,  compared  with  Euripides, 

156;    his    genius,    171,    172; 

quoted,  162  n. 
Pitt,  William,  the  younger,  5, 6  «., 

23n.,  29,  52,  56,  68,  m,  160, 

202,    236;    the    "heaven-born 

minister,"  30,  163 ;  at  the  out- 


INDEX 


258 


break  of  the  French  Revolution, 
37,  38  ;  and  the  peerage,  45 ; 
and  the  French  Directory,  59  ; 
his  eloquence,  60 ;  duel  with 
Tierney,  60  ;  at  Home  Tooke's 
trial,  72  ;  all  account  book,  72  ; 
and  the  Sinking  Fund,  73 ;  in 
the  war  with  France,  78 ;  a 
lover  of  arbitrary  power,  79 ; 
his  Irish  policy,  90 ;  contempt 
for  literature,  99  ;  ''  incompar- 
able financier,"  163 ;  and  the 
currency,  164 ;  Canning  and, 
216. 

Plato,  his  talent  for  allegory,  233. 

Plutarch,  122-3. 

Poet,  qualities  of  a  great,  48. 

Poets,  tempore  George  III.,  214. 

Poland,  xvii,  162  ;  compared  with 
Ireland,  91. 

Polybius,  122-3. 

Pompey,  139,  140  ;  at  Pharsalia, 
24. 

Ponsonby,  George  (1755-1817), 
206. 

Pope,  Alexander,  xi,  46  n.,  213, 
216 ;  Rape  of  the  Lock,  49 ; 
Eloisa  to  Abelard,  49 ;  on 
Homer's  shield  of  Achilles, 
150 ;  his  political  optimism, 
81. 

Popham,  Sir  Hope,  18  n. 

Porson,  Richard,  verses  by,  229  ». 

Portugal,  Queen  Maria  of,  239, 
240. 

Poussin,  Nicholas,  168. 

Pretyman,  Rev.  G.,  Bishop  of 
Lincoln,  60,  170  n. 

Price,  Dr.  R.  and  the  Sinking 
Fund,  73  ». 

Prince  Regent,  41,  224  ;  Trotter's 
dedication  to,  viii. 

Prussia,  King  Frederick  William 
III.  of,  117. 

Prussia,  Queen  Louisa  of,  and 
the  English  Ambassador,  181. 

Public  Characters,  220. 

Pulteney,  Sir  James  Murray, 
50,  110 ;  expedition  to  Ferrol, 
20  ru  ;  Secretary  at  War,  21  n. 

Quarterly  Iteview,  on  Lander,  vii ; 
on  the  Commentary,  ix ;  on 
President  Madison,  xiv  n. 

Quiberon,  Expedition  to,  20, 


Racine,  96  ;  epithets  in,  165  ;  his 
characters  and  method  of  com- 
position, 166  ;  lines  borrowed 
from  Godeau,  166. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  77. 

Raphael,  168. 

Recamier,  Madame,  189. 

Reviewers  of  books,  146. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  228. 

Rhyme,  in  French  poetry,  165. 

Riversdale,  Lord,  xv,  90. 

Robertson,  William,  Scotch  his- 
torian, and  contemporary  criti- 
cism, 144  ;  his  style,  22 

Robespierre,  9,  29,  56. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  56  n. ;  on  Helen 
Maria  Williams,  186  n. 

Roland,  Madame,  107. 

Roman  Catholics,  42,  203  ;  Fox 
and,  93,  208. 

Romans,  conquests  of,  26 ;  an  un- 
romantic  people,  137. 

Rome,  Carthage  and,  88 ;  re- 
public of,  122,  123,  140. 

Roscoe,  William  (1758-1831),  66, 
205. 

Roscommon,  Wentworth  Dillon, 
Earl  of,  213. 

Rose,  George  (1774-1818),  xiv; 
his  book,  235. 

Rosebery,  Lord,  Pitt,  by,  quoted, 
20  n. ,  58  n. ,  71  n. ;  in  The  Monthly 
Review,  170  n. 

Rousseau,  224 ;  and  Thomas  Gray, 
143  ;  La  NouveUe  Heloise,  143  n. 

Rubens,  116,  169. 

Ruhnken,  David,  229. 

Russia,  English  Ambassador  in, 
179. 

Saint-Simon,  Due  de,  Memoirs, 
205. 

Sallust,  95,  96  ;  quoted,  118.  " 

San  Sebastian,  182. 

Santona,  182. 

Sarpedon  in  Homer,  134. 

Saurin,  William,  Irish  Attorney- 
General,  xii,  240  n. 

Scaliger,  Joseph,  128,  230  n. 

Scrogges,  Sir  William,  Lord  Chief 
Justice,  241. 

Sejanus,  73. 

Sertorius,  137. 

Seward,  Anna,  Dr.  Johnson  and, 
145. 


254 


INDEX 


Shadwell,  Thomas,  213. 

Shakespeare,  77,  216 ;  his  Caliban, 
231  ;  his  facility,  149. 

Shenstone,  William,  Schoolmis- 
tress, 233. 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  45  n., 
101  «.,  219  ;  called  the  rival  of 
Moliere,  219 ;  and  Fox,  218, 
219. 

Sicily,  English  in,  117,  118. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  77,  139. 

Similies  in  poetry,  153. 

Sinking  Fund,  Pitt  and  the,  73. 

Slave  trade.  Fox  and  the,  64. 

Smith,  Adam,  Theory  of  Moral 
Sentiments,  228. 

Smith,  Admiral  Sir  Sidney,  68  n., 
239  n. 

Smith,  Rev.  Sydney,  Peter  Plym- 
leys  Letters  quoted,  36  n.  5  on 
C.  J.  Fox's  verses,  75  n. 

Sophocles,  compared  with  Euri- 
pides and  iEschylus,  157- 

Sotheby,  William,  translation  of 
Virgil,  132. 

Southey,  Robert,  his  copy  of  the 
Commentary,  viii,  xx ;  corre- 
spondence with  Landor,  ix  et  seq., 
on  the  state  of  the  nation,  31  n.  ; 
and  The  Critical  Review,  146. 

Spain,  68,  108  ;    Landor  in,  xxi, 
182  ;  war  with,  84  ;   a  land  of 
romance,      138 ;     nobility     of, 
160  ;  English  agents  in,  181. 
pallanzani,  Lazarus,  243. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  inferior  to 
Ariosto,  151  ;  his  language,  212  ; 
his  complaint  of  neglect,  214  ; 
The  Faery  Queene,  154,  212,  213, 
216. 

Spenserian  stanza.  The,  233. 
tadtholder  of  Holland,  116,  117, 
124,  125. 

Stanhope,  Earl,  History  of  England, 
quoted,  8».,  237  n.  ',  Life  of 
William  Pitt,  16  n.,  46  ».,  61  n. 

St.  Anne's  Hill,  Fox  at,  104,  111, 
127,  210. 

erne,  Lawrence,  an  English- 
man, 87  ;  Tristram  Shandy 
quoted,  11.3  n. 

Supernatural  in  poetry,  232. 

Swift,  Jonathan,  xi,  213 ;  an 
Englishman,  87  ;  quoted,  241. 

Switzerland,  Bonaparte  and,  184. 


Sydney,  Algernon,  44,  77,    139, 
189. 

Tacitus,  Germania,  123. 

Talleyrand,  xiii,  27. 

Tallien,      Jean     Lambert,      56 ; 

Madame,  191. 
Tasso,  quoted,  151 ;  compared  with 

Alfieri,  155. 
Taxation  in  England,  6,  28. 
Terence,  Julius  Caesar's  verses  on, 

216,  219  n. 
Thackeray,  F.,  Life   of  Chatham, 

71  n. 
Theatre,  in  France,  164,  165. 
Tlieocritus,  215. 
Thomson,  James,  The  Seasons,  75  ; 

Castle  of  Indolence,  233. 
"  Three  in  a  bed,"  63. 
Thuillier,    Julia    (Mrs.    Landor), 

xxii. 
Thuillier,  Vincent,  101  n. 
Thurlow,  Lord  Chancellor,  8  n. 
Tiberius,  Emperor,  73. 
Tierney,  George,  duel  with  Pitt, 

60. 
Tighe,  Mrs.,  87. 
Tomline,  Rev.  G.     See  "  Prety- 

man." 
Tonson,  Jacob,  bookseller,  48  n. 
Tooke,  Home,  111 ;  trial  of,  72  n. 
Triumvirate,  The  Roman,  85. 
Trotter,  John  Bernard,  author  of 

Memoirs  of  C.  J.  Fox,  viii  et  seq. 
Turks,  Virtues  of  the,  24. 
Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  painter,  169. 
Tyrolese,  The,  10. 

United  States.     See  '^America." 

Valenciennes,  Siege  of,  39. 

Venetian  painters,  169. 

Vernet,  Horace,  168. 

Versailles,  169. 

Villoison,    Jean  Baptiste,   C.    J. 
Fox  on,  229. 

Virgil,  readings  in,  127-32,  195 
imitations  of  Homer,  128,  132 
Landor's  translation  from,  131 
defects  in  the  ^neid,  136 ;  his 
^neas,  137  ;  his  want  of  judg- 
ment, 138  ;  pathos,  139  ;   con- 
trasted with  Ariosto,  151 ;  moral 
and  political  axioms,  157  ;  his 
Dido,  197  ;  seascapes  in,  227. 


INDEX 


255 


Voltaire,    praise    of  Machiavelli, 
99  ;  hated  by  Alfieri,  166. 

Walcheren  Expedition,  21  n.,  22. 
Walker,  Dr.  de  Noe,  xviii. 
Walpole,  Horace,  quoted,  16»., 

70n.,  71  n. 
War,  Weapons  in,  101. 
Warton,   Joseph,   228,    232;    on 

Pope,  49 ;  Translation  of  Virgil, 

132. 
Washington,  George,  68, 77,  137  ; 

and  t£e  War  of  Independence, 

77,  78. 
Wellington,  the  Duke  of,  xi,  xiii. 
West  Indies,  39. 
Westminster  Hall,  A  statue  for, 

77. 


Whitelocke,  General  John,  18  n., 
60, 110  ;  court-martial  on,  20  n. 

Whitworth,  Charles,  Earl,  178  n. 

William  III.,  28,  140. 

Williams,  Helen  Maria,  186-8, 191. 

Wilson,  Richard,  painter,  169. 

Windham,  William  (1760-1810), 
I7n.,  20n.,  217. 

Witt,  John  and  Cornelius  de,  126. 

Wyttenbach,  Daniel,  his  Vita 
Ruhnkerii,  229. 

Xerxes,  63. 

York,  Frederick  Augustus,  Duke 
of,  39n. 

Zaragoza,  the  hero  of,  138. 


Printtd  by  Hattll,  Watton  «t  Vinty,  Ld.,  London  and  Aylubvay. 


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